An eYcient method for analyzing ten organic acids in food, namely citric, pyruvic, malic, lactic, succinic, formic, acetic, adipic, propionic and butyric acids, using HPLC was developed. Boric acid was added into the mobile phase to separate lactic and succinic acids, and a post-column buVer solution [5 mmol/L p-toluensulfonic acid (p-TSA) + 20 mmol/L bis (2-hydroxyethyl) iminotris (hydroxymethyl) methane (bis-tris) + 100 mol/L sodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic (EDTA-2Na)] was used to improve the sensitivity of detection. The average spiked recoveries for the ten organic acids ranged from 82.9 to 127.9% with relative standard deviations of 1.44-4.71%. The linear ranges of determination were from 15 to 1,000 mg/L with correlation coeYcients of 0.9995-0.9999. The metabolism of organic acids in cider, and the eVect of nutrients including diammonium phosphate (DAP), thiamine, biotin, niacinamide and pantothenic acid on their metabolism, were studied using this method of analysis. We found that before cider brewing, additions of 200 mg/L DAP and 0.3 mg/L thiamine to apple juice concentrate results in a high quality cider.