| Abstract
| - Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) are short-chain sugars that occur naturally and have dietary benefitsfor humans. They are widely distributed in nature and are a natural part of the human diet. Theobjective of this study was to determine the concentrations of 1-kestose (GF2), nystose (GF3), and1F-β-fructofuranosylnystose (GF4) in a variety of common processed and prepared foods. An ionchromatographic method was developed for this purpose in which the sugar concentrations weremeasured using integrated amperometry. The samples were simply prepared by blending with waterand filtering the suspensions through a 10000 Da cutoff centrifugal filter. These samples were theninjected into the ion chromatograph, which had been programmed for gradient elution, and theareas of the sugar peaks obtained compared to those of standard sugars on a calibration curve.Selected samples were prepared both with and without standard spikes in order to assess theefficiency of the determination. Of the vegetables investigated, artichokes contained by far the mostFOS, followed by onions; bananas contained more FOS than other fruits investigated. The methodwas shown to be simple, convenient, and relatively fast for the quantitation of FOS in processedand prepared food products. Keywords: Fructooligosaccharides; food composition; ion exchange chromatography
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