Food Sources of Minerals

Minerals in foods include a range of inorganic elements that are required by living organisms to support biochemical processes, including building bones and teeth, transmitting nerve signals, energy conversions from food and vitamin biosynthesis.

All foods from both plants and animals contain varying amounts of minerals. The mineral material may be present as inorganic or organic salts or may be combined with organic material, as the phosphorus is combined with phosphoproteins and metals are combined with enzymes.

Animals tissue contain minerals in the proportions that the animal needs, so animal derived foods are more reliable mineral sources.

Minerals from animals foods can be absorbed more easily than those from plants.

Plants foods can be excellent of several minerals but the mineral content of plants can vary dramatically depending on the minerals in the soil where the plants are found.

More than 60 elements may be present in foods.

It is customary to divide the minerals into two groups, the macro-minerals or essential minerals and the trace elements.

The macro minerals includes potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, sulfate, phosphate and bicarbonate. These minerals required at more than 100 mg/day by the adult.

Trace elements are all others and are usually present in amounts below 50 parts per million (ppm).

There is also a group of minerals called ultra trace minerals, including vanadium, tin, nickel, arsenic, and boron that are being investigated for possible biological function.

Some mineral elements have been documented to be toxic to the body and should, therefore, be avoided in the diet.

The levels of trace elements/minerals in foods very according to inherent, environmental and processing factors.
Food Sources of Minerals

The Elements of Mineral

The Elements of Mineral
Minerals are inorganic elements that occur in nature. They originate from earth’s crust and in animal or plant cellules constitute only a small proportion of the body tissue.

During dry or wet ash-destruction process, the organic matrix of the illogical sample is completely decomposed and removed in the form of volatile carboneous material, and the remaining material which is the nondestructive residue, contains only mineral compounds.

Many mineral elements are essential constituents of enzymes regulate a variety of physiologic processes (e.g. maintenance of osmotic pressure, oxygen transport, muscle contradiction and central nervous system integrity), and are required for the growth and maintenance of tissues and bones.

They are so potent and so important that without them the organism would not be able to use the other remaining constituent of foods.

The total daily diet contains minerals within the range of 0.2-0.3% of all nutrients. The main mass of these minerals is made up of six minerals, whereas dozens of other, present on trace quantities, constitute only a hundredth of a percent of the total mass of daily eaten nutrients.

Because of their broad biochemical activity, many inorganic compounds are also intentionally used as functional agents in processing a variety of foods.

On the other hand, cations in foods, such as Fe2+ and Cu2+, may induce a diversity of undesirable effects that influence the nutritional quality of foods.

Iron for example, can actively catalyses lipid oxidation and its presence even in trace amounts has long been recognized as potentially detrimental to the shelf-life of fats, oils, and fatty acids.

Iron compounds can activate molecular oxygen by producing superoxide, which through dismutation and other steps of biochemical changes results in the formation of hydroxyl free radicals.

Minerals play an important role in plant life. They function as catalysts for many biochemical reactions, are responsible for changes in the states of cellular colloids, directly affect the cell metabolism, and are involved in changes in protoplasm turgor and permeability.

In body tissues, other trace minerals also occurs, such as arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, lead and mercury, which until now have been recognized as potentially harmful, although recently, Al, As, Cd and Pb in very small quantities have been suggested to have some characteristics of essentially but lacking a defined biochemical function.
The Elements of Mineral

Main Elements: Sodium

Main Elements: Sodium
The sodium content of the body is 1.4 kg. Sodium is present mostly as an extracellular constituent and maintains the osmotic pressure and maintains the osmotic pressure of the extracellular fluid.

In addition, it activates some enzymes, such as amylase.

Sodium absorption is rapids; it starts 3 – 6 min after intake and is completed within 3 h.

Daily intake of sodium averages 2.5 g (females) to 3.3 g (males); the adult’s minimum requirement ranges form 1.3 – 1.6 g/day (equal to 3.3 – 4.0 g/day NaCl).

The intake of too little or too much sodium can result in serious disorders.

From a nutritional standpoint, the daily sodium intake should be limited o 2.3 g (equivalent to 6 g NaCl).

A low intake of sodium can be achieved by a nonsalty diet or by using diet salt.
Main Elements: Sodium