| A quick and simple method was developed to assess the maximum bio-accessibility of elements (i.e. the maximum amount of elements that can be released) from food into artificial gastrointestinal fluids. The method is based on reagent leaching of the food sample by, successively, artificial saliva, gastric juice and intestinal juice. A single-line flow injection manifold is used to repeatedly inject 100-muL aliquots of a given reagent that is then pumped through a mini-column of food (maintained at 37°C), which is connected to the nebulizer of an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) instrument. The high sensitivity of ICP-MS allows the simultaneous detection of trace elements as they are released from the food. This on-line leaching approach allows the continuous monitoring of the progressive release of elements by a given reagent. A proof of concept of this simple method was made using a standard reference material, corn bran (NIST 8433 from the National Institute of Standards and Technology). (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
