Abstract: This study proposed a high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) method for the determination of guar gum in adulterated livestock meat. The samples were enzymatically hydrolyzed by β-mannanase, added with acetonitrile to precipitate protein, and then centrifuged. The supernatant was purified on a neutral alumina column, detected using a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometer, and quantified by external standard method. The results showed that the linear range for guar gum was 0–2 g/kg, the correlation coefficient was above 0.99, the limit of detection (LOD) was 0.030 0 g/kg, the limit of quantification (LOQ) was 0.100 g/kg, and the recoveries ranged from 85.4% to 109.8%, with relative standard deviations (RSDs) between 1.5% and 9.3%. The developed method has the advantages of simple pretreatment, clear detection indexes and high sensitivity, and can be used as an effective method for detecting added guar gum in livestock meat.

Key words: gum-injected meat; guar gum; high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry; food safety