Determination of Aspartame Levels in Soft Drinks Consumed in Ankara, Turkey

Aspartame is commonly used as artificial sweeteners in several food products. Excess amounts of aspartame can be harmful to human health. Therefore, the investigation of aspartame levels in foods is important. The aim of this study was to determine levels of aspartame in soft drinks and to evaluate whether these amounts were within the Turkish Food Codex values or not. For this purpose, total number of 90 soft drink samples (A, B, C, D, E and F brands) including 15 from each brand were collected from supermarkets in Ankara province, Turkey . In this study, spectrophotometric method was used for the quantitative determination of aspartame in the samples. Mean levels (± S.E) of aspartame in samples of A, B, C, D, E and F brand were found as 156.81±7.29 mg/L, 208.67±8.97 mg/L, 236.58±17.91 mg/L, 299.54±26.19 mg/L, 202.39±8.08 mg/L and 223.28±14.08 mg/L, respectively. Our data revealed that mean levels of aspartame were found within Turkish Food Codex in all samples. However, some samples were not found appropriate according to the label information.