Rapid Liquid Chromatographic Assay of Vitamin E and Retinyl Palmitate in Extruded Weaning Foods

Extruded weaning foods were produced using cowpea + corn + soybean + soybean oil (35:50:10:5, w/w) and cowpea + corn + peanut (42:43:15, w/w) by twin screw extrusion and fortified with vitamin premix. A direct solvent extraction method was used to assay fortified α-tocopheryl acetate as the ester to differentiate it from the naturally occurring alcohol for accurate assessment of total vitamin E activity. The fortified retinyl palmitate was assayed from the same extraction and assayed as the more stable ester with the same LC conditions after changing the detection wavelengths. Using direct solvent extraction, analytical values of vitamin E homologs in extruded products were higher than those values from saponification.