Total phenol content of toddy as a tool of checking adulteration

Abstract

Toddy is a well-known local alcoholic beverage since ancient times in Sri Lanka. It is produced from fermenting of phloem sap of various palm trees. Beneficial health effects arising from palm sap and toddy have been well documented. Natural toddy is not popular as a commercial beverage because of its hygienic and quality issues. Adulterants such as water, alcohol and sugar, added by toddy makers are known to affect the quality in toddy. After dilution of toddy with water, parameters such as alcoholic strength, turbidity and acidity are adjusted by adding adulterants to obtain desired toddy by toddy makers. Therefore it is difficult to identify genuine toddy by using parameters such as alcoholic strength, refractive index, specific gravity and pH. Because of this problem any parameter that can be easily adjusted by adding adulterants can�t be used as a tool for quality assurance in toddy. In order to check the quality of commercial toddy for authenticity, total phenolic contents of authentic toddy samples and commercial toddy samples were compared by colorimetric analysis using Folin-Denis reagent. Absorbance was measured at 745 nm. Total phenolic content of samples were calculated as gallic acid equivalents. Results reveal that total phenolic content of authentic toddy samples were 129.60+2.53 ppm while that of suspicious toddy samples were 65.80+8.47 ppm (No of samples 20). Approximately 50 % lower total phenolic content of suspicious toddy samples can be resulted from some kind of dilution and adjustment of the alcoholic strength of commercially available toddy. The results indicate that total phenol content can be used as a good indicator of distinguishing between authentic toddy and adulterated toddy.