Selective gas chromatographic determination of cholesterol in eggs

A selective gas‐chromatographic method is proposed for the determination of cholesterol in egg samples. The method consists of extraction of the lipid fraction and cold saponification prior to determination on a glass capillary column. The absence of cholesterol oxidation during the process was checked, and the conditions in which oxidation is avoided are discussed. The method also showed good precision (coefficient of variation=1.39%). Applying this method to different fresh and frozen egg samples, we obtained a mean content of 392 mg of cholesterol/100 g of edible portion. These values are clearly lower than the majority of results published for eggs.