Comparison of analysis of vitamin D3 in foods using ultraviolet and mass spectrometric detection.

A method for analysis of vitamin D(3) in commonly fortified foods and in fish, which contains endogenous vitamin D(3), was developed by combining the best aspects of two official methods. The ethyl ether/petroleum ether extraction procedure from AOAC 992.26 was combined with the chromatographic separation and use of an internal standard (vitamin D(2)) from AOAC 2002.05 to produce a method that was applicable to a variety of food samples. Results for skim milk, orange juice, breakfast cereal, salmon, a diluted USP reference standard (vitamin D(3) in peanut oil), and processed cheese are presented. Results indicated that UV detection was adequate in most cases, but the absence of interfering species must be determined in each food by mass spectrometry. Selected ion monitoring (SIM) atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) mass spectrometry (MS) was shown to produce statistically indistinguishable results compared to UV detection for the skim milk, orange juice, multigrain cereal, and salmon samples. The processed cheese exhibited interferences that precluded quantification of vitamin D(3) by UV detection, and therefore, only SIM APCI-MS data for that sample were valid.