An enzymatic method for the determination of fructans in foods and food products

Abstract

 We report a new and non-equipment demanding method of measuring the content of fructans as well as the contents of free glucose, free fructose and sucrose in foods and food products enzymatically. This method comprises hydrolysis of fructans into d-glucose and d-fructose enzymatically and measurement of the released sugars enzymatically. Sucrose is hydrolysed by α-glucosidase instead of β-fructosidase, which is normally used. In addition, sucrose is measured in the form of d-fructose instead of the typical d-glucose form, and the fructanase used to hydrolyse the fructans has fewer side effects than the fructanase reported as normally used. The method is tested on ten standard substances and five fructan products, and nine foods and food products are also analysed. The enzymatic measurement of the released sugars is confirmed by measurements done by high performance anion exchange chromatography with pulsed amperemetric detection.