Quality assessment of mineral mixture and chelated minerals available in the market
2012
Saijpaul, S. | Singh, Parminder | Sikka, S.S.
Samples of 19 mineral mixtures and 6 chelated minerals were collected from the progressive dairy farmers and analysed. The range of DM, ash, acid insoluble ash (AIA), Mg, Mn, Zn, Fe, Cu, S, Ca and P were 93.69–99.8, 20.13–90.18, 0.85–23.35, 0.26–15.1, 0.01–0.25, 0.0–0.9, 0.0–2.69, 0.0–0.41, 0.19–1.98, 7.2–30.9 and 0.0–19.78%, respectively. As compared to the BIS specification for mineral mixture, all the samples had the required DM but contained 21.1% lower total ash and 94.7% higher AIA. The number of samples failing BIS specification for Mg, Mn, Zn, Fe and Cu were 57.9, 47.4, 47.4, 36.8 and 42.1%, respectively; whereas samples having lower Ca, P and S were 21.1, 63.2 and 73.7%, respectively. The price (Rs 40/kg to 350/kg) also did not relate to the mineral content or quality of the mineral mixture. In the 6 samples of chelated minerals, the range of Mn, Zn and Cu was 0.42–3.68%, 1.46–5.08% and 0.36–2.0%, respectively, and all met the daily requirement at the recommended dose. However, wide variation was observed in the total ash and AIA content. The price ranged from Rs 140 to 700/kg which supplied several times higher chelated minerals in the suggested dose. It may be concluded that there is a need to monitor the quality of mineral mixtures available in the market due to their non-uniformity in the minerals and higher AIA content. The chelated minerals supply the specific minerals in the daily dose but may not be cost effective due to its exuberant price.
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