Journal of Nutrition Vol. 52 No. 2 February 1954, pp. 273-283
Copyright © 1954 by American Society for Nutrition
Effects of Salts on the Instability of Thiamine in Purified Chick Diets1
Paul E. Waibel2,
H. R. Bird and
C. A. Baumann
Departments of Biochemistry and Poultry Husbandry, College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin, Madison
- 1. Thiamine was particularly unstable in purified chick diets containing salts V. The ingredient most responsible for this destruction was K2HPO4; CaCO3 and MnSO4 also contributed to the instability of thiamine. The stability of thiamine was decreased further when the salt mixture was ballmilled.
- 2. A new salt mixture, devoid of the two most deleterious ingredients of salts V, permitted thiamine stability under the conditions tested.
- 3. Thiamine mononitrate was somewhat more stable than thiamine chloride hydrochloride under certain conditions, although when the destruction of thiamine was very rapid, its use was of less importance than the composition of the salt mixture.
- 4. One per cent of glycerol reduced the disappearance of thiamine under a wide variety of conditions. On the other hand, ascorbic acid was protective only under relatively dry conditions, and in a moist environment it sometimes hastened thiamine destruction. The stability of thiamine varied widely with humidity.
1 Published with the approval of the Director of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station. Supported in part by grants from Merck and Co., Rahway, New Jersey, and from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
2 Present address: Department of Poultry Husbandry, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Manuscript received 31 August 1953.