Abstract:

With the aim of developing an optimal sample preparation method for the determination of gardenia yellow
in meat products by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), orthogonal design methodology was employed to
optimize the recovery rate of gardenia yellow from samples with respect to four extraction conditions including solid/solvent
ratio (g/mL), ultrasonic extraction time and extraction number. The optimal extraction conditions were achieved as follows:
samples were ultrasonically extracted twice for 20 min each using methanol with a solid/solvent ratio of 1:6 (g/mL). The
HPLC method established based on these optimized extraction conditions exhibited a good linear relationship in the range
from 0.5 to 50 mg/mL with correlation coefficient of higher than 0.999 and a detection limit of ≤ 0.07 μg/g for crocin and
crocetion in meat products. The mean spike recovery rates for both gardenia yellows in meat products were in the range of
83.51%–96.00% with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of ≤ 2.94%. This method is accurate, simple, quick and suitable
for the determination of crocin and crocetion in meat products.

Key words: high performance liquid chromatography, orthogonal experiment, meat, crocin, crocetion, gardenia yellow