ABSTRACT
Because of the interaction of tocopherols and tocotrienols with oxidative events in foods through their function as antioxidants, physical handling associated with harvesting and storage of raw commodities and, then, further processing and marketing can produce significant changes in vitamin E levels. Depending on environmental factors and the oxidative stress placed on the commodity by the required chain of events necessary to deliver the fresh or processed food to the consumer, these changes can be quite severe with the potential for complete loss. Such events leading to loss of vitamin E can be initiated at any point during the harvesting, storage, processing, and marketing chain. Likewise, storage of the product and food preparation by the consumer can have dramatic effects on the retention of vitamin E in the food at the point of consumption. Because of vitamin E’s relative instability, a large degree of variability exists in reported vitamin E contents for similar products. Many researchers have documented the stability of tocopherols and tocotrienols under various agronomic, storage, processing, and food preparation conditions for many commodities and their processed foods.
