Glucosinolates (GLS) are sulfur rich, anionic secondary metabolites found principally in the plant order Brassicales. This review focuses on identifying the range of GLS structures identified to date and summarises the current state of taxonomic reclassifications of GLS producing plants. Those Brassica species that are available to growers in the UK are highlighted and progress in the aspects of analytical chemistry relevant to conducting accurate determinations of GLS content of foods is reviewed. The degradation and derivatisation workflows that have been utilized for conducting ''glucosinolate analysis'' are summarized. A review is made of aspects of extraction, isolation, determination of purity, ultraviolet (UV) and mass spectrometry (MS) parameters, extinction coefficients, UV response factors, quantification procedures, and the availability of stable isotope labeled internal standards, and certified reference materials. An electronic database of structures, formulae and accurate masses of both the 200 known, and a further 180 predicted GLS, is provided for use in mass spectrometry.

We report here the first confirmation of the recent Swedish findings of acrylamide in heated foods. The verification exercise used an LC-MS/MS method developed for the purpose as well as an established GCMS method for acrylamide analysis. LC-MS/MS was suitable for the direct determination of acrylamide in aqueous extracts of foods by isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS) using triply deuterated acrylamide. Some food matrices were not suited to the new method and mixed-mode solid-phase extraction (SPE) was used to clean these extracts. The foods tested included UK versions of some of the key food groups analysed in Sweden. Also tested were some foods heated under home-cooking conditions. There was good agreement between the LC-MS/MS results and the GC-MS results and the levels of acrylamide found here were similar to those reported for the corresponding foods analysed in the Swedish study. The analyses confirmed that acrylamide is absent from the raw or boiled foods but present at significant levels in fried, grilled, baked and toasted foods. The highest result was 12000 microg kg(-1) acrylamide in overcooked oil-fried chips.

Although interindividual variation in isoflavone metabolism was high, intraindividual variation was low. Only concentrations of O-DMA in plasma and urine appeared to be influenced by sex. Chronic soy consumption does not appear to induce many significant changes to the gut metabolism of isoflavones other than higher beta-glucosidase activity.

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