Attached
Chillie (Capsicum annuum L.) powder is the
dried, pulverized fruit of chillies and used as a spice to
add pungency flavour to the dish. This study was
conducted to investigate the macro metal content in
chillie powder samples commonly available in the Sri
Lankan m arket Five brands of chillie powder samples
named A, B, C, D and E, and an unbranded sample
were selected for this study. Three batches from each
brand and three samples from each batch were
purchased. An ungrounded whole dry chillie sample
was selected as the control. The macro metal content
was determined using Atomic absorption spectrometric
and X-ray fluorescence spectrometric techniques.
Results were statistically analyzed using one-way
ANOVA, at 0.05 probability level with MINITAB-14
software package. According to this study, there was no
significant difference between the batches in each brand
in mean metal contents. But there were significant
differences among the brands in mean metal contents.
According to the results Na content of all the chillie
powder samples and Ca content of some brands (brand
C-955.2 ± 1.2 pg/g, brand D-962.0 ± 0.9 pg/g and brand
E-822.0 ± 1 .0 pg/g ) were found to be lower than the
control (1495.2 ± 0.3 pg/g). The reason for this may be
due to the loss caused by heat generation during the
chillie grinding process or may be due to adulteration
with plant materials with low Na and Ca content. The
mean K content of chillie powder samples was within
the range of 22 866.6 to 25 547.0 pg/g, while the mean
Mg content varied in the range of 1991.3 - 2180.5 pg/g.
These variations may be due to multiple factors, such as
the differences in soil conditions where it was grown,
variety of chillie, maturity of chillie, growing season,
climatic condition, processing treatments and
preservation method.
