ANALYSIS OF SACCHARIN IN RED PORRIDGE FROM TRADITIONAL MARKET WHICH VALIDATED USING UVVISIBLE SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC

Saccharin is hundreds of times sweeter than sucrose, so that it can save production costs. Saccharin as a synthetic sweetener sugar substitute is very potential to be used in making sweet tasting foods that are sold at cheap prices in traditional market, one of which is red porridge. Many foods sold in traditional market are not accompanied by marketing permits as a home industry product, thus increasing the potential for saccharin abuse. This study aimed to determine the content of saccharin in red porridge sold in traditional market and to found out its suitability with the safe limits required in Regulation of the Head of the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency of the Republic Indonesia number 4 of 2014 concerning the maximum limit for the use of sweetener food additives. Identification of saccharin was carried out by resorcinol test and thin layer chromatography. Determination of saccharin was carried out by UV-Visible Spectrophotometric which had been validated at 267.5 nm. The results show that 9 samples of red porridge sold in traditional market contain saccharin with concentrations of 0.0154 – 0.0652 %, so that it exceeds the required safe limit of 0.0100 %. In the analysis method validation, selective method is obtained in the range of 20 – 60 μg/mL, with recovery 98.7371 %, coefficient of variation 0.8671%, coefficient of correlation 0.9993, limit of detection 1,9859 μg/mL, limit of quantitation 6.6197 μg/mL.