Rapid determination of cholesterol in single and multicomponent prepared foods.

A rapid method has been developed for cholesterol determination in single and multicomponent foods. The method involves alcoholic KOH saponification of the samples, extraction of the nonsaponifiable fraction with hexane, and injection of concentrated extract into the gas chromatograph without derivatizations. It has been applied to a wide variety of frozen and refrigerated foods. More than 300 samples were analyzed with a coefficient of variation (CV) ranging from 0.5 to 8.6%. The average recoveries of cholesterol from spiked oil and tomato vegetable soup samples were 100 +/- 1.5% and 99.7 +/- 1.6% and the CVs were 1.5 and 1.6%, respectively. This method reduces labor by > 70%, eliminates dangerous chemicals, and minimizes solvent use, compared to the AOAC method and other methods cited in the manuscript. The method was used successfully on a wide variety of multicomponent foods. We recommend this method for collaborative study under the AOAC guidelines for method approval.