Furan in Commercially Processed Foods: Four-Year Field Monitoring and Risk Assessment Study in Korea

Abstract

The aim of this study was to monitor and assess the risk associated with the presence of furan in various food products consumed in Korea. An optimized analytical method was used for the analysis of furan levels. The optimized solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber exposure conditions as follows for temperature, time, and amount of sample were 50°C, 20 min, and 5 g (ml), respectively. Furan was detected in all food samples tested, at levels ranging from 0.4 ng/g in canned crab to 814 ng/g in ground roasted coffee powder. The furan levels in coffee, canned fish, canned meats, sauce, soup, retort, canned vegetables, baby foods, nutritional/diet drinks, confectionary and biscuits and snacks, juice, jams, and canned fruit were (ng/g) 169, 56.1, 30.1, 21.1, 18.1, 15.6, 10.9, 10.6, 7.1, 5.4, 3.7, 3.2, and 2.9, respectively. Furan concentrations in baby food products were between 1 and 102.5 ng/g. The total exposure estimate of furan was determined to be 10.6 ng/kg/d (maximum, 20 ng/kg/d) for adults, and 17.4 ng/kg/d (maximum. 84.9 ng/kg/d) for babies. Exposure estimates found in this study are lower than those prescribed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).