Application in real samples
A total of 24 samples comprising of ground raw carrot, sweet potato and carrot (10 g/100 g raw emulsion) and sweet potato (10 g/100 g raw emulsion) incorporated chicken meat nuggets were evaluated for the quantification of β-carotene content. The results of analytical data (Table 3) indicated that fortified chicken meat nuggets had lower levels of β-carotene than their corresponding values of nearly 7.4 and 6.8 μg/g of ground raw carrot and sweet potato samples, respectively. This could be attributed to lower recovery of β-carotene content from the fortified tissue samples (Table 2) coupled with degradation of that compound on heating during product processing. The degradation of β-carotene content during heat processing is well-documented (Edwards and Lee, 1986 and Park, 1987).