Methanol contents of fruit juices and smoothies in comparison to fruits and a simple method for the determination thereof

作者：Possner D^*; Zimmer T; Kuerbel P; Dietrich H

来源：Deutsche Lebensmittel-Rundschau, 2014, 110(2): 65-69.

Methanol occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables where it is bonded to pectins. It can be released during processing to derived products like fruit juice, puree or wine. A new discussion about the hazards of methanol to human health was started by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) which added methanol to a list of chemicals known to cause reproductive toxicity. In this work various fruit juices and smoothies were tested for their methanol content. Several varieties of apples were also tested in regard to the methanol content of the whole fruit and of their respective juices. For mass balancing the distribution of MeOH between mash, pomace and juice was examined. Therefore a new, fast and simple method for the determination of free and bonded methanol was developed. It could be demonstrated that more than 90 % of the potentially available methanol remains in the pomace and only about 2.5 % is transferred to the aqueous phase of the apple juice. This means that a fruit juice contains much less methanol than the corresponding fruit. Therefore the consumption of fruit juice should be harmless.

• 出版日期2014-2