What Is Ash & What Foods Can I Find It In?
Ash is an inorganic material, used to describe the non-combustible elements left over after heating or when your body burns up the food you eat.
It’s not added to foods. Ash can include both compounds with essential minerals, such as calcium and potassium, and toxic materials, such as mercury.
Table of Contents
Ash Is Residue
Ash refers to any inorganic material, such as minerals, present in food. It is called ash because it is the residue that remains after heating. When water and organic material such as fat and protein have been removed. (source ◳)
Ash can include both compounds with essential minerals, such as calcium and potassium, and toxic materials, such as mercury.
Ash Is Not Added To Foods
Ash is not something that is added to foods. Ash represents the total mineral content in foods. Determining the ash content may be important for several reasons.
It is part of proximate analysis for nutritional evaluation, and it is an important quality attribute for some food ingredients. Also, ashing is the first step in the preparation of a sample for specific elemental analysis. (source ◳)
Ash contents of fresh foods rarely exceed 5%, although some processed foods can have ash contents as high as 12%, for instance, dried beef. (
Foods You Can Find Ash In
You find Ash mostly in spices and herb, sweets, baked, sauce and gravy products.
Examples of food sources include
- Sazon, Coriander & Annatto
- Table Salt
- Rennin
- Baking Powder
- Beef Broth
- Chicken Broth Cubes
Foods That Contain Ash In Our Nutrition Tool
You can access regularly updated top ranked lists of foods for over 200+ nutrients in our nutrition tool.
If you are interested in what foods contain the most of ash we recommend you use our tool.
Here's our top ranked list of foods that contain ash.