Analysis of selected micro minerals in some commercially available cat food in Malaysia

Pets such as cats play an important role as a companion in the house. Due to time constrain in preparing cat diet, owners will provide their cats with commercial cat food. Cat foods in the market are available in various qualities. In the present research, attempts were made to determine the concentration of aluminum, copper, manganese, and zinc in budget, normal and premium quality of dry and wet cat food and compare with the recommended value for adult maintenance cat by AAFCO. For each classes of cat food, 5 randomized samples with different bar code were collected and repeated for 10 times. All the samples were collected around Kuantan and Puchong area. The samples were then analyzed for selected micro minerals concentration by acid oxidative digestion and quantify by induced coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. The data were analyzed statistically to find out the significance difference between three classes of cat food. Concentrations of selected micro minerals were compared with the recommended concentration by AAFCO. There is significant difference between all three classes for both dry and wet cat food. It was also found that selected micro minerals concentrations in all classes do not comply with AAFCO standard. The present study showed that the concentration of selected micro minerals were independent of pricing and quality of ingredients used.