Effect of different vitamin D supplementations in poultry feed on vitamin D content of eggs and chicken meat.
J Agric Food Chem. 2011 Aug 10;59(15):8298-303. Epub 2011 Jul 7.
Mattila PH, Valkonen E, Valaja J.
Biotechnology and Food Research, MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Jokioinen, Finland. pirjo.mattila at mtt.fi
According to a new European Union regulation, vitamin D(3) can be partially or totally substituted with 25-hydroxyvitamin D(3) (25-OH-D(3)) in hens' feed.
The purpose of this study was to clarify how this regulation has affected the vitamin D content of commercial eggs and chicken meat. Another aim was to investigate how effectively 25-OH-D(3) is transferred from the hens' diet to egg yolk by analyzing eggs from farms using known commercial feeds and by conducting an animal study. Vitamin D determinations were made by HPLC methods.
The vitamin D(3) contents of two commercial egg yolk pools were 4.9 ± 0.14 and 4.0 ± 0.10 ?g/100 g, and the 25-OH-D(3) contents were 1.3 ± 0.19 and 1.0 ± 0.07 ?g/100 g. The chicken meat pools contained 0.2-0.3 ?g of vitamin D(3)/100 g, whereas the content of 25-OH-D(3) was ?0.2 ?g/100 g. These results are comparable to earlier data. The animal and farm studies showed that 25-OH-D(3) was effectively transferred from the hens' diet to yolk. However, because the relative activity between 25-OH-D(3) and vitamin D(3) is unknown, it remains questionable whether the use of 25-OH-D(3) in hens' feed is beneficial to human vitamin D intake from eggs.
PMID: 21696169