A rapid spectrophotometric method for the determination of peroxide value in food lipids with high carotenoid content

Abstract A rapid and sensitive ultraviolet‐visible spectrophotometric method for determination of peroxide value (PV) in foods with high carotenoid content (e.g., paprika oleoresin, paprika powder, red palm oil) has been developed. The proposed protocol [modified International Dairy Federation (IDF) method] was established from the IDF Fe(II)‐oxidation‐based spectrophotometric method, and the main one of the introduced modifications consisted of a clean‐up extraction step of pigments before determining the PV by complexing Fe(III) ions with thiocyanate. Fe(II) oxidation time, reaction medium, and Fe(III)‐thiocyanate complex formation time were optimized. The modified IDF method was compared with and was validated by iodometric AOAC official method with a good correlation ( R 2 =0.957) between data obtained by both analytical methods. The high sensitivity of the method allows the use of only about 0.010–0.015 g of sample, with a detection limit of 0.044 mequiv peroxide/kg of sample. Therefore, an improved spectrophotometric method for assessing PV in food lipids with high carotenoid content is now available and can be applied to any kind of sample, independent of oil and pigment content.