Stability of stevioside in food processing conditions: unexpected recombination of stevioside hydrolysis products in ESI source.

Stevioside is the main and the sweetest glycoside of stevia plant. It is attractive as a natural sweetener to diabetics and others on carbohydrate-controlled diets. This paper discusses the stability of stevioside under food processing conditions. It was found that stevioside was transformed not only to rubusoside, steviolbioside, steviol monoside and steviol but also to previously unknown stevioside α-anomer and rubusoside α-anomer. Those two identified stevioside transformation products are formed not only during the heating of acidic, neutral and alkaline stevioside standard solutions and stevia leaves suspensions in water and ethanol/water solvents but also during the processing of foods containing stevia. Apart from presenting the new compounds, the paper additionally shows that the recombination of sugar moiety with steviolbioside molecule in MS/ESI source can occur. The effect of molecule recombination in the MS source is known from the literature; however, it has not been reported previously in relation to stevioside derivatives.