At present, gum-injected meat appeared in the market, which has seriously damaged the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Therefore, a method for the determination of carrageenan and konjac gum in livestock meat and meat products by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) was established. The samples were hydrolyzed by hydrogen nitrate. After centrifugation and dilution, the supernatants were detected by the UPLC-MS/MS and the concentration of target compounds in samples were calibrated by the matrix calibration curves. A good linear relationship was observed in the concentration range of 5-100 μg/mL with correlation coefficients of more than 0.995. The limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantification (LOQs) were found to be 20 and 50 mg/kg, respectively. The recoveries at three spiked levels (50, 100 and 500 mg/kg) in blank matrix were in the range of 84.8-108.6% with the relative standard deviations between 1.5% and 6.4%. The method has the advantages of convenient, accurate and efficient, and can be used as an effective method for detecting carrageenan and konjac gum in the different kinds of livestock meat and meat products.
Keywords: Gum-injected meat; carrageenan; konjac gum; ultra-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS); water-soluble gum.