Sugar and sugar products.

Emphasis over the past year has been on editorial effort to bring Chapter 44, Sugar and Sugar Products of the Official Methods of Analysis of AOAC INTERNATIONAL (OMA) to the high standards set for the 17th Edition of the compendium. In addition, 2 method studies were reported and subjected to peer review, respectively, dealing with detection of adulteration of maple syrup by beet or cane sugar and determination of low levels of glucose and fructose in sugar. The editorial effort could not cover improvements requiring peer review or experimental verification, as needed in some traditional methods based on reducing sugar determinations and in newer methods based on separation, mostly by liquid chromatography (LC), used worldwide to measure sugar product composition and purity. The General Referee will develop a program in this direction. For the short term, the General Referee recommends the repeal of AOAC Method 920.192 (44.5.11), Winton Lead Number of Maple Syrups. The following methods should be changed to surplus status: 935.63B (44.1.24), Fructose in Sugar and Syrups According to Munson-Walker; 935.64B (44.1.26), Maltose in Sugar and Syrups According to Munson-Walker; 920.183(a) (44.4.09), Sugars (Reducing) in Honey According to Munson-Walker; and 932.15 (44.1.25), Fructose in Sugars and Syrups According to Jackson-Mathews. While the latter method is no longer in use, all other methods above refer to surplus methods and are redundant. Method 920.183(b) (44.4.10), Sugar (Reducing) in Honey According to Constant Volume, Lane-Eynon Method should be retained. AOAC Method 999.03, Measurement of Total Fructan in Foods, currently in Chapter 44 of the 17th Edition of the OMA should be moved to Chapter 45, Vitamin and Other Nutrients, Subchapter 4, Nutritionally Related Components. A method utilizing specific natural isotope fractionation and deuterium nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (SNIF-NMR) to detect beet or cane sugar addition in maple syrup received First Action approval. The method extends existing AOAC Method 995.17 applicable to beet sugar in fruit juices. A question is still open whether stable isotope ratio analysis is an effective means of detection of adulteration of maple syrup or honey when blends of beet and cane sugar or blends of beet sugar and corn syrup are used. An AOAC/ICUMSA method for trace levels of glucose and fructose in sugar by means of ion exchange chromatography and pulse amperometric detection also received First Action approval. Scope was limited to raw cane sugar, because Horrat values for trace glucose and fructose in refined sugar were deemed too high. Future work is indicated, possibly, to define detection limits of the method and to show how it could be approved also as applicable to refined beet and cane sugars.