Vitamin retention in cook/chill and cook/hot-hold hospital food-services.

The vitamins with the greatest losses during hot-holding of food (> 10% after 2 hours) are vitamin C, folate, and vitamin B-6; retinol, thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin appear to be relatively stable. The 66 studies reviewed in this article give inadequate information on the losses of many other vitamins. In cook/chill food-services, substantial losses of sensitive vitamins occur during each of the chilling, storage, and reheating stages. Different reheating methods have similar effects on the amount of vitamin retention. Losses of vitamin C and folate can be greater than 30% when food is reheated after storage for 24 hours at 3 degrees C. Current research indicates that under normal operating conditions, with hot-holding limited to less than 90 minutes, vitamin retention is better in a conventional food-service than in a cook/chill system.