The dietary intervention to lower the phenylalanine (Phe) serum levels of patients with Phenylketonuria (PKU) requires a restricted supply and the precise knowledge of Phe contents in foods, in order to control the intake of this amino acid. This work aimed to get more accurate data for protein and Phe contents in soup cubes of two commercial products to give dieticians data they need for planning diets. The amino acid contents were estimated by ion-exchange chromatography and moisture, lipids, crude protein (Nx6.25) contents were determined according to AOAC (1995) methods. Fiber was determined enzymatically. Protein nitrogen was determined after acid precipitation. Our results showed in both products, similar moisture and lipid contents with mean values of 3.7 and 8.4%, respectively. Dietary fiber contents were lower than 2% but it is worthy to mention the high mineral contents 61% in product A and 54% in product B. The comparison of total nitrogen (TN) and protein nitrogen (PN), shows that approximately 95% of TN corresponds to N of non protein origin. The real protein contents were only 0.71g/100g and 0.84g/100g in samples A and B, respectively and we were not able to detect phenylalanine. Theoretically, based solely on calculations and considering that proteins contain about 4% Phe in their constitution, the samples contain a maximum of 34mg Phe /100g, meaning 3.6mg Phe per each cube of 10.5g. These small amounts of Phe could explain the enormous difficulty in detecting this amino acid. The high amount of non-protein N is due to the presence of monosodium glutamate, which does not allow a reliable protein estimation by Nx6.25, resulting in protein and Phe overestimation.
phenylalanine; soup cubes; phenylketonuria; dietary treatment
