Levels of furan in foods from the first French Total Diet Study on infants and toddlers

This study describes an optimisation and validation process on a method using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry to quantify furan in foods consumed mainly by infants and toddlers. The method that we developed allowed for low limits of quantification for liquid (1 µg kg−1) and solid (2 µg kg−1) samples. Our method was then applied to 134 food samples from the first French Total Diet Study on infants and toddlers. Furan was detected in 84% and quantified in 61% of the samples, at average lower and upper bound (LB/UB) concentrations ranging from 0 to 44 µg kg−1. The sugar and sugar derivatives, milk, growth milk, infant formulae and “other hot beverages categories contained the lowest average content (LB/UB ≤ 1 µg kg−1) and breakfast cereals contained the highest (LB/UB = 44 µg kg−1).