Food Safety Risk Assessment of γ-Butyrolactone Transformation into Dangerous γ-Hydroxybutyric Acid in Beverages by Quantitative 13C-NMR Technique

Food safety remains a matter of great concern in most countries and the composition in food is crucial to food safety. It is very important to make sense of the quality and change of food ingredients. In this research, the change of γ -butyrolactone (GBL), one kind of food additive in beverage, had been evaluated by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique. The 1 H-NMR results of seven beverages covering various kinds with spiked GBL indicated that GBL was transformed into dangerous γ -hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) in six popular beverages under certain conditions which could happen during transportation and storage. Further results of quantitative 13 C-NMR showed that pH and temperature were two key factors affecting the transforming degree of GBL to GHB. Lower pH and higher temperature will increase the degree of transformation. GHB was a neurotransmitter on the chemical control list, which was absolutely forbidden to be added to food. This nondestructive NMR detecting technology which did not need the complex pretreatment method to directly determine food ingredients can be useful for identifying the risk of food safety from the changes of food composition during transport and storage.