Vitamin B12 content analysis of favorite Korean restaurant foods, convenient foods and bakery products

ABSTRACT

There is a limitation to estimate vitamin B12 intake due to the lack of data on vitamin B12 content of Korean commercial foods. In this study, vitamin B12 content was determined in favorite Korean restaurant foods, convenient or instant foods, fast foods and bakery products through a modified microbioassay using Lactobacillus delbrueckii ATCC 7830. Bulgogi and seafood & green pepper griddle had high vitamin B12 content, 3.50 and 2.96 microg/100 g, respectively. Pork suyook, pork griddle and pollack griddle had 0.48, 0.31 and 0.32 microg/100 g of vitamin B12, respectively. In stew, soft-tofu stew with seafood and doenjang stew with seafood had relatively high vitamin B12 content, 1.93 and 1.44 microg/100 g, respectively. Bibimbap and 4 different types of rice porridge, beef & mushroom, chicken & ginseng, seafood or abalone, had 0.36, 0.08, 0.09, 1.64 and 0.13 microg/100 g of vitamin B12, respectively. One serving of haejanggguk, yookejang, chuotang and galbitang had 5.97, 2.04, 2.63 and 1.91 microg of vitamin B12, respectively. One serving of samgetang and sulongtang had 2.89 microg and 6.64 microg of vitamin B12. In noodles, one serving of cram noodle soup, bibim-nangmyeon, and mul-nangmyeon had 18.8, 1.21 and 0.38 microg of vitamin B12, respectively. One regular gimbap and one triangle gimbap contained 1.09-2.53 and 0.54-1.11 microg of vitamin B12, respectively. One cheese-burger, chicken-burger and bulgogi-burger had 0.76, 0.62 and 0.54 microg of vitamin B12, respectively. A plain bagel and a waffle contained 0.13 and 0.17 microg/100 g of vitamin B12, respectively. Ready-made tomato sauce or cream sauce for spaghetti in a retort pouch contained only a trace of vitamin B12. In conclusion, these results should contribute to improving the present food vitamin B12 content database, most of which were cited from foreign data, thereby it could be helpful to estimate the vitamin B12 intake of Koreans more accurately than before. It will also provide new information for dietary education related to vitamin B12 and health.