Introduction
Reporting the fat content of food on packaging material is required for many products. For this reason, the ability to detect and distinguish different types of fats is important. The AOAC has an official method, Method 996.06, for the detection of fats (total, saturated, and unsaturated) that uses GC paired with FID to separate fatty acids, derivatized with methylation. As part of this method, the distinction of some cis and trans isomers is also accomplished, which is desirable information related to the ban on trans fats. Here, we combine GC with TOFMS and achieve comparable chromatographic separations based on Method 996.06 for a fatty acid standard and for fatty acids extracted from a variety of butter, margarine, and shortening samples. While FID is a standard detector for these analyses, we present some scenarios where MS detection, in particular TOFMS with deconvolution capabilities, offers key benefits to see what you are missing in your fats analysis.
Figure 1. A TIC chromatogram of the FAME standard containing 37 analytes is shown. All of the anticipated analytes were observed and identified with this analytical approach. The cis and trans isomers, methyl trans-9-octadecenoate and methyl cis-9-octadecenoate, are chromatographically separated here and easily distinguished. In cases like this where the mass spectral information is very similar, this chromatographic separation is essential.
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