Direct demonstration of the presence of zinc in the acetone-extractable red pigment from Parma ham

We studied the presence of zinc in the red pigment extracted from Parma ham by scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis. The large peak of about 8.6 keV and the small peaks at about 1.1 keV and 9.5 keV were derived from Kα, Lα1 and Kβ X-ray of zinc, respectively. Thus, the results suggested that zinc existed in the red pigment extracted from Parma ham. In contrast, the Kα X-ray peak of iron (6.4 keV) was not detected and the Kα X-ray peak of magnesium (1.3 keV) was hardly detected. These results revealed that the red pigment contained not iron but zinc. In addition to the results of mass analysis in previous studies, the red pigment was demonstrated to be zinc protoporphyrin IX.