Cow milk is one of the most important nutrition sources besides breast milk for infants and babies; therefore the detection of nitrate
and nitrite in milk is of great importance to the health of infants and babies. Traditional colorimetric method for the determination of the
nitrate and nitrite concentrations in food is very tedious. In the present study, 100 samples of milk and milk powder were analyzed by ion
chromatography to detect nitrate and nitrite simultaneously without tedious preparation steps. The limit of detection (LOD) for nitrate is
0.33 ppm and the LOD for nitrite 0.07 ppm. The measured nitrate concentration in milk ranged from 0.3 - 417.7 ppm with an average
concentration of 92.7 ppm. The nitrite concentration in all milk samples were below the detection limit. The survey information was as the
following: (1) the average nitrate concentration of colostrums fortified milk ranged from 14.1 to 136 ppm. (2) the average nitrate concentration
of whey fortified milk ranged from 42.6 to 242.8 ppm. (3) the average nitrate concentration of ordinary milk ranged from 57.9 to 157.6
ppm. The dietary intake of nitrate from milk and milk products in Taiwanese adults and children were estimated. All the nitrate exposure
levels calculated with the measured results for the different age groups were less than the acceptable daily intake (ADI) of 3.7 mg/ kg body
weight per day suggested by WHO. Finally the health effect of nitrate and nitrite in foods was discussed.
