A BIOCHEMICAL STUDY OF COPRA MEAL 
By Francisco 0. Santos y Alvarez 
Of the Laboratory of Agricultural Chemistry, College of Agriculture, 
University of the Philippines 
INTRODUCTION 
In 1917 the Philippines produced about 186,900 tons of co- 
pra (21) which, after the oil was extracted, gave a by-product of 
74,760 tons of copra meal. If all of this meal could be sold as 
feed, the additional return to the manufacturers would reach the 
respectable sum of 1,569,960 pesos.^ Unfortunately, the nutritive 
value of the meal is not well known, and perhaps for this reason 
it is not used extensively as feed. Just now most of it is being 
used for fuel ; but, when the price of coal becomes normal again, 
it could probably be used to greater advantage as feed. At 
present, the oil factories in the Islands are in a prosperous con- 
dition. This will naturally cause an increase in the demand for 
copra and in the amount of by-product obtained. It is, therefore, 
of the highest importance to know the real feeding value of this 
by-product. 
A review of the literature on this subject will show that the 
biochemistry of copra meal has been studied to a limited extent 
only. The one work reported on the subject is that of the Haus- 
mann number on the globulin of coconut determined by Osborne 
and Harris and included by Plimmer(18) in his table of nitrogen 
partition into three groups for different proteins.® Why this 
feeding stuff has been neglected by chemists is not known ; it is 
probably due to the fact that only in recent years has the need 
^ Published with the permission of the Director of the Experiment Station 
of the College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines. 
“Copra meal was sold (1918 and 1919) at 21 pesos a ton by the Phil- 
ippine Oil Products Company, of San Pablo, Laguna. In May, 1919, the 
price of copra meal in Manila was 40 pesos a ton. At this rate 74,760 
tons would cost 2,990,400 pesos. 
“ Since the manuscript for this paper was wi-itten C. 0. Johns, A. J. 
Finks, and E. F. GersdorfF, Journ. Biol. Chem. 37 (1919) 149, have pub- 
lished data on the distribution of the basic nitrogen in coconut globulin. 
The average data of the analysis by the Van Slyke method given by these 
authors on page 152, have been included in Table 2. 
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