Synthetic Colorants in Traditional Sweetmeat (Laddu) available in Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Synthetic Colorants in Traditional Sweetmeat (Laddu)

Abstract

Laddus are very popular sweets all over the South Asian countries including Bangladesh. Commercially accessible sweets (Laddus) contain a variety of Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 dyes, which are hazardous when consumed in excess. In this study, the amount of Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 in twenty-five Yellow-colored Laddus from various sweet shops in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was determined using a UV-visible spectrophotometer at 425 and 482 nm, respectively. Quantification was done using external calibration curves of the standard Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 and the calibration curves showed excellent linear correlation co-efficient (R2) of 0.999 and 0.998 for them, respectively. Of the twenty-five samples, eleven had Yellow 5 in the range of 0.915-6.790 mgkg-1, and eight had Yellow 6 in the range of 0.223-4.315 mgkg-1. The rest of the samples did not contain any Yellow 6 as well as Yellow 5.

Dhaka Univ. J. Sci. 72(2): 45-51, 2024 (July)