Unexpected sources of vitamin C

Sausages are quite common in the Norwegian diet. Presently the vitamin C content in sausages is listed as zero in the Norwegian Food Composition Table as well as in several other countries’ food composition tables. In the present study, five different kinds of sausages were analysed for relevant nutrients including vitamin C. One composite sample consisting of 15–16 subsamples was analysed for each sausage type. Vitamin C was measured by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with electrochemical detection as the sum of l-ascorbic acid and dehydro-ascorbic acid. The vitamin C content in the analysed sausages varied from 11 to 40 mg/100 g. This is explained by addition of vitamin C as an antioxidant by the manufacturer mainly to preserve colour. When recalculating vitamin C intakes from the most recent Norwegian national dietary surveys in adults, children and youths using the updated vitamin C values, total vitamin C intake increased by 3–10%. Other processed meat products such as cold cuts may also contain vitamin C as an antioxidant, and a larger impact on vitamin C intake may be seen if also these products turn out to contain considerable amounts of vitamin C. When planning analytical projects for food composition databases, care should be taken to include vitamin C for products where this vitamin may have been added for antioxidant purposes.