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Background and Objectives: Furfural (F) and hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) are cyclic aldehydes, which are formed during the heat processing of foods. These chemical contaminants have received much attention due to their suspected health hazards and heat damage indicators. The aim of the present study was extraction and determination of F and HMF in baby-foods using dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

Materials and Methods: Several effective parameters including the type and volume of extracting and disperser solvents, pH and salt amount were studied and optimized to find the best way of detecting and analyzing F and HMF. The optimized method was applied to determine F and HMF in 33 samples of baby-foods (powdered, soups, fruit puree and juices).

Results: According to the results of this study, the optimal experimental conditions were: 4.5 for pH, 60 µL for 1-octanol, 600 µL for ethanol and 2 g of salt (NaCl). The limit of detection (LOD) was 1.3 µg kg^-1 for F and 2.1 µg kg^-1 for HMF. F and HMF were found in all samples at levels ranging from 110 to 27510 µg kg^-1 and from 200 to 25750 µg kg^-1, respectively.

Conclusions: The proposed method can be considered as an effective, fast and reliable method for investigating F and HMF in baby-foods.

Keywords: Furfural, Hydroxymethyl furfural, Baby-foods, Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction, High-performance liquid chromatography

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Background and Objectives: : Vitamin D₃ measurement in food and fortified food matrixes is usually interrupted by several variables. This study aimed to elaborate a specific vitamin D₃ quantification method for fortified Taftoon bread considering different influential variables in each step of measurement.
Materials and Methods: Dough was fortified with (4μg/100g) and the standard protocol No.13579 was followed with some modification in the extraction and determination steps.
Results: Addition of ethanol before adding potassium hydroxide and heating up the samples in tight containers in saponification step ceased clumping the extracts and helps it’s homogeneity. In extraction, distilled water addition following extraction with diethyl ether and Petroleum ether, adding ethanol at each step of washing and using SPE column result in an appropriate experimental extract. In the chromatography step, mobile phase substitution from methanol to 5:95 water, methanol mixture provided the method with more differentiation power. Using the above condition, commercial vitamin D₃ was recovered from fortified Taftoon dough with 82-100% recovery and recovery of spiked vitamin D₂ from dough and bread were ranged as 94 and 86.5%, respectively, Limit Of Detection(LOD) and Limit Of Quantification(LOQ) of the method were 0.04 and 0.1mg L^-1 respectively, which equaled 5μg/Kg and 10μg/Kg. True retention for the added commercial vitamin D₃ in Taftoon bread was obtained as 83.4% which increased to 92% after six months storage in freezer.
Conclusions: Results of this study can be used to specify a protocol for vitamin D₃ measurement in fortified bread samples. Modified experiment which is projected in this study would specify the general protocol of vitamin D₃ measurement that was previously proposed in the national standard of Iran for developing a new and practical national standard document.

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Background and Objectives: Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) technique has been studied for extraction of bioactive compounds from Feijoa sellowiana leaves. Results were compared with those obtained from conventional ethanolic extraction (CE).
Materials and Methods:
Results: The best supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO₂) extraction conditions was determined as 250 bar of pressure, 50 °C of temperature, and 90 min dynamic extraction time. Under these conditions, the crude extraction yield (CEY) of bioactive compounds was 38.14 ± 0.17 mg g^-1. Spectrophotometric analysis revealed that the extract possesses strong radical scavenging activity (78.18 ± 0.12%, 74.19 ± 0.14%, 49.38 ± 0.18% inhibition of DPPH˙, ABTS˙⁺, and OH˙, respectively). The HPLC analysis revealed that gallic acid, catechin, rutin, ferulic acid, apigenin, and quercetin are the major phenolic compounds present in the extract. The CEY obtained using the best conditions of SCE process was around 70% of those obtained with CE. However, the quality of extracts regarding radical scavenging activity and bioactive phenolic content was higher than those obtained by CE.
Conclusions: F. sellowiana leave is a potential source of bioactive compounds with strong radical scavenging activity and the SC-CO₂ extraction can be considered as a green technique to extract bioactive compounds.