An in vitro enzymatic digestion method for estimation of the acrylamide contents of foods

In this study, the acrylamide contents of foods were estimated via liquid chromatography (LC)/mass spectrometry (MS)/MS after the food matrix constituents had been degraded with digestive enzymes (i.e., pepsin and pancreatin) and extracted with water. The quantities of acrylamide released from samples of cereal, potato chips, peanuts, and coffee were 62±5.1, 970, 106±20, and 890 ppb, respectively. No acrylamide was detected in samples of soybean curd (tofu), fish cake, and ham. Compared to the amounts of acrylamide detected after extraction with water only, we noted no significant differences in the soybean curd, fish cake, potato chip, ham, and coffee samples. However, the quantities of acrylamide released from the cereal and peanut samples were approximately 2-fold larger following pretreatment with the digestive enzymes. This study presents a new in vitro enzymatic digestion method which allows for a more accurate estimation of the acrylamide contents of foods.