ABSTRACT
Since the discovery of amino acid chelates and their application to mineral nutrition, much has been written about their bene‘ts. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to the requirements necessary to actually produce a nutritionally functional chelate. The reacting of metals with amino acids to form chelate molecules is a very exacting science. Frequently, due to incomplete understanding of chelation chemistry by certain manufacturers, the requisite heterocyclic ring structure is not the end result. Instead, a type of amino acid complex often results in which the metal may be attached to the end of an amino acid, or a metal salt could be formed, or a simple admixture of protein/amino acids and metal salts could be made.
