Abstract:Pigments in cereal products including mung bean, millet, purple rice, fine dried noodles and instant noodles were extracted using methanol-ammonia-water as the solvent. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to determine the concentration of tartrazine, sunset yellow, carmine, amaranth, and brilliant blue in the extracts simultaneously by the multi-wavelength (428, 482, 254, 510nm, and 600nm) method, using methanol and 0.02mol·L-1 ammonium acetate as the gradient elution. The results showed that the detection limits of tartrazine, sunset yellow, carmine, amaranth, and brilliant blue were 1.01, 1.70, 4.38, 1.14ng, and 5.32ng, respectively, the average recovery was around 82%~102%, and the relative standard deviation (RSD) was 0.6%~5.3%. This method is simple, time-saving, and the sensitivity is improved for the multi-wavelength treatment reduces the disturbance of other components.