[moondog]

The “ash content” is a measure of the total amount of minerals present within a food, whereas the “mineral content” is a measure of the amount of specific inorganic components present within a food, such as Ca, Na, K and Cl.

Fresh and raw foods do contain minerals (aka ash). They do have to use heat on a sample of raw food to determine the ash content of a food....the ash is the inorganic residue that remains after all moisture and organic content of a food has been burned away....and this is what that is referring to.

Determining the ash content is the first step in analyzing the amount of individual minerals that are found in a food, but most nutritionists put more value in the mineral content because it identifies specific minerals rather than just a total value of the inorganic residue.