α-Tocopherol, fatty acids and their correlations in Bulgarian foodstuffs

HPLC and GC methods were used for the analysis of 33 foodstuffs divided into 7 groups: cereals, oils and fats, milk and dairy products, meat, eggs and poultry, fish and nuts. The richest sources of α-tocopherol (α-T), seed oils, show considerable variations of α-T (11.0 mg% soybean oil–44.88 mg% sunflower seed oil), as does the content of PUFA (12.72 g% olive oil–66.87 g% sunflower seed oil) with approximately the same content of total lipids (TL) (99.79–99.89 g%). A correlation was established between α-T and total lipids r=0.61 (T=4.28, P>99%). An even higher correlation was found between α-T and polyunsaturated fatty acids r=0.80 (T=7.42, P>99%). Regarding the essential n-6 and n-3 fatty acids α-T was established to correlate only with n-6 fatty acids r=0.82 (T=7.50, P>99%).