Determination of illegal colorants in grilled meats by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

An analytical method using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was validated for the simultaneous determination of three illegal colorants including chrysoidine G, para red, and pararosaniline in grilled meat. The meat samples were homogenized and extracted by QuEChERS, and analyzed by LC-MS/MS. Good linearity was obtained in a range of 30 - 1000 µg/L, 5 - 1000 µg/L, and 0.5 - 1000 µg/L  for chrysoidine G, para red, and pararosaniline, respectively. The repeatability and accuracy of the method were adequate with the recoveries ranged from 90% to 98% and RSD% of 5.3 to 10.7% for 3 compounds. The procedure was applied for 49 samples of different types of grilled meat collected from six different areas in Hanoi. Chrysoidine G was detected in 19 samples. It's remarkable that among these positive samples, 6 samples were found negative on homogenized samples, and positive with chrysoidine selected sample with the more intensely colored surface part.