Macro and micromineral in commercial infant formula milk in Indonesia by neutron activation analysis

The content of protein and minerals in infants formula milk is composed based on the composition of breast milk that provides adequate nutritional requirements for food intake in infants. Minerals as in macro and microminerals are essential for biological processes since they involve bone mineralization, enzymatic reactions, secretion of natural hormones, cells and lipid protection. The composition of macro and micromineral is one indicator in influential the quality of formula milk. Therefore, in this activity, the determination of macro and micromineral elements in infant formula milk was carried out by Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) method and evaluated formula milk by considering the concentration of daily nutritional requirements. Formula milk samples were obtained in Indonesian market. The samples were irradiated on a lazy susan system at TRIGA 2000 Bandung Reactor with a neutron flux of ˜ 10¹³ n.cm⁻².s⁻¹ for three days. The validation method was also carried out using Typical Diet standard reference material. The validation results have a good agreement with the certificate value with bias (%) ranging from 0.6 to 6.9. Determination of macro and micromineral nutrients using NAA method resulted K, Na, Fe, Se, and Zn with an average value were 0.66%; 0.25%; 82.7 µg/g; 0.14 µg/g; and 34.7 µg/g respectively. These values were still within the concentration ranges as stated in nutritional labelled by manufacturers. The daily intake of macro and micromineral K, Na, Fe, Se, and Zn were 5150, 5110, 65, 0.11, and 27 mg/day, respectively. By consuming tolerable amounts of infant formula milk, this commodity is a source of nutrition that required by the infant's nutritional adequacy rate.