Spectrofluorometric determination and thin layer chromatographic identification of serotonin in foods

A method is described for determining serotonin in foods, based on alkaline butanol-sand column elution followed by spectrofluorometric and spectrofluorometric determination with thin layer chromatographic confirmation. The method has been applied to fresh bananas, banana-based baby food, and fresh and canned tomatoes. The average recovery was 91%. The amounts of serotonin found were 10--30 ppm in bananas, 0.1--1.9 ppm in banana-based baby foods, 4.4--5.6 ppm in fresh tomatoes, and 2.8--5.6 ppm in canned tomatoes.