It is important to consider various aspects, including nutritional,
toxicological and commercial, when developing methods for
meat analysis. An alkaline treatment with TMAH was used in this
work in order to develop a fast and simple method for sample
preparation of fresh and processed meat (both pork and bovine) for
the determination of Fe, Mg, Mn, P and Zn by inductively coupled
plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP OES). The elements
studied included some of the macro (Mg and P) and micro (Fe, Mn,
Zn) nutrients generally found in meat samples. For this purpose,
sample characteristics and instrumental conditions were evaluated
and optimized.