Fluoride Determination of Fruit Juice Beverages

Estrellita Gutierrez

In order to optimize oral health, it is important to monitor dietary fluoride intake. To ensure dietary fluoride intake remains within optimal levels, fluoride content in foods and beverages are continually being determined, because fluoride concentrations in such products vary with respect to location of production, and whether fluoridated or non-fluoridated water was used. This project focused on determining the fluoride concentrations of fruit juices available in the Medford, Oregon area using the direct potentiometry method, which resulted in a range from 0.066 ± 0.001 ppm to 1.230 ± 0.064 ppm. Out of the13 juice brands tested, Juicy-Juice, Mondo, and Welch's were responsible for the 15% of the samples that exceeded the target fluoride concentration of 0.70 ppm for fluoridated municipal water supplies. All 65 of the tested juice samples had averaged fluoride levels significantly below the maximum contaminant level of 4 ppm for public drinking water.