Estimation of menthol in Pan Masala samples by a spectrophotometric method.
Recently, the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act of India has fixed the level of menthol addition to Pan Masala at 0.1%, therefore good manufacturing practice (GMP) should be adopted so that the samples do not exceed 0.1% menthol (1 mg/g). The estimation of menthol in Pan Masala samples involves steam distillation followed by reaction with p-dimethyl amino benzaldehyde (DMAB) in acidic medium to give a red colour which is read at 550 nm. The sensitivity of this procedure is 75 micrograms menthol per g sample. Using this method, 130 branded and 53 non-branded samples of Pan Masala were analysed for menthol content. Almost 25% of branded samples contained less than 1 mg menthol per g while 75% of samples contained 1.1-6.5 mg menthol per g Pan Masala. Non-branded Pan Masala contained 1 mg menthol per g in only 7.6% of samples. However, 92% of samples contained 1.1-6.5 mg menthol per g, suggesting that the addition of menthol is relatively higher in non-branded Pan Masala samples than in branded ones.
Kannan
A
A
Food Toxicology Division, Industrial Toxicology Research Centre, Lucknow, India.
Das
M
M
Khanna
S K
SK
D001114:Areca / Q000737:chemistry; D005506:Food Contamination; D006801:Humans; D008610:Menthol / Q000032:analysis* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D010946:Plants, Medicinal; D013053:Spectrophotometry
D008610:Menthol