Occurrence of glycidyl esters in infant formula products on the Canadian market between 2015 and 2019

• Published in: Food additives & contaminants. Part A, Chemistry, analysis, control, exposure & risk assessment Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 43 - 55
• Main Authors: Schneider, Jakob F., Becalski, Adam, Zhao, Tony, Liu, Yihui, Chen, Fuqi, Rawn, Dorothea F. K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Taylor & Francis 2023; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: alpha-Chlorohydrin - analysis; Baby foods; Canada; Carcinogens; Chromatography, Liquid; Contaminants; Dilution; Epoxy Compounds - analysis; Esters; Esters - analysis; Fatty acids; Feed formulation; Food Contamination - analysis; Genotoxicity; glycidol; Glycidyl esters; Humans; Infant; infant formula; Infant Formula - analysis; Infants; liquid chromatography with tandem mass; Manufacturing; occurrence data; Oils & fats; Plant Oils - analysis; Propanol; Radiochemical analysis; spectrometry LC-MS/MS; Stable isotopes; Tandem Mass Spectrometry; Vegetable oils; Vegetables; Canada; liquid chromatography with tandem mass; occurrence data; infant formula; Glycidyl esters; spectrometry LC-MS/MS; glycidol
• ISSN: 1944-0049; 1944-0057
• DOI: 10.1080/19440049.2022.2141468

Glycidyl fatty acid esters (GEs) are processing contaminants formed during refining steps of vegetable oils. 'In vivo' hydrolysis of GEs releases potentially carcinogenic and genotoxic glycidol (2,3-epoxy-1-propanol). Occurrence of GEs in vegetable oils used for infant formula manufacturing may pose a potential health concern for formula-fed infants. Refined oils are commonly used as the main fat ingredient in formula manufacturing. For this study, different infant formula products (powders, concentrates and ready-to-feed formula products) were purchased and analysed in 2015 (35 samples) and 2019 (33 samples). Seven individual GEs were analysed by LC-MS/MS via direct approach by stable isotope dilution analysis, and total bound glycidol concentrations were calculated. Concentrations of bound glycidol in reconstituted formula reached maxima of 40.3 ng/g in the 2015 samples and 31.5 ng/g in the samples collected in 2019, with respective means of 8.7 ng/g and 6.7 ng/g. The analysed bound glycidol concentrations are comparable with concentration ranges from other studies, but are higher than observed in studies from the European market. Temporal trend data show a reduction of bound glycidol concentrations in 2019. GE concentrations were compared across different manufacturers.