Abstract
Ractopamine (RAC) has been used for growth promotion and increasing the lean body weight of food-producing animal in US and some other countries. However, the residues of RAC in the edible tissues and the possible adverse effects of RAC are highly concerned by consumer. Since most food is cooked before eating, the information regarding heat stability of RAC in edible tissues becomes an important issue. The purposes of this study were to evaluate the heat stability of RAC in beef, pork, swine liver, swine kidney, and swine lung by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with UV detection. Results showed that the RAC concentration decreased as heating time increased and a linear relationship (R^2 ＞ 0.9) could be established. After two hours of heating, the percentage of degradation was lowest in beef (24.4%) than in other tissues. Degradation of RAC in swine tissues (pork, liver, kidney and lung) ranged from 34.1 to 46.4% and was highest in lung with significant difference (＜ 0.05) to liver and kidney. These data suggested that degradation of RAC varied in different matrices, even at continuously heating for two hours, only about half of the residual RAC in swine tissues can be degraded. Therefore, it cannot be assumed safe that normal cooking process can completely degrade RAC residues in meat matrices.
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