Seasonal variation of selected mineral elements in raw cow milk obtained from Benin City, Nigeria

Abstract

Inter dependence exists between food quality indices and their supporting environment. Therefore, in this work, raw cow milk samples collected during the wet and dry seasons in Benin City, Nigeria, were investigated for some mineral elements. Specifically, zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), chromium (Cr), cobalt (Co), cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) in the raw cow milk samples were investigated. It is discernible from results, that Ca with mean total of 121.680±19.386mg/kg for samples collected during the wet season and mean total of 120.822±13.762mg/kg for samples collected during the dry season, occurred most among the examined mineral elements. On the other hand, Pb with mean total of 0.027±0.009mg/kg for samples collected during the wet season and mean total of 0.017±0.004mg/kg for samples collected during the dry season was the lowest occurring. Results further indicated that variations occurred in the levels of occurrence of the examined mineral elements with respect to the season of sampling. The remarked variations were statistically significant (P<0.05). It is hoped that findings from this work would be beneficial to milk handlers.