[en] The importance of food composition related to nutritional and toxicological contents has been emphasized in recent years. Some chemical elements are needed for cell metabolism, while excess or deficiency may be responsible for disorders. Milk is considered the most important food during the first months of life, nutritional needs of children being satisfied by milk and dairy products. These foods provide the main trace elements for the good growth of different tissues as well as the functioning of several enzymatic systems. Important deficiencies in mineral during this period can interfere with children's development. Determination of mineral and trace elements by using spectroscopic techniques generally involves a pretreatment of sample. Sample preparation is the most critical part of the analysis because of the long preparation time and the possibilities for contamination and losses of the analyte associated with this step. Different procedures of sample preparation (dry ashing digestion, wet digestion using an open focused microwave and a hot plate) were evaluated for determining Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, P and Zn in milk and dairy products by the ICP OES technique. In this work the concentrations obtained for the elements determined by the ICP OES technique after using the different treatments of sample were compared to the results obtained by the INAA technique, that does not require dissolution of sample. The partial digestion with diluted hydrochloric acid was found to be suitable for determining Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, P and Zn in milk samples and dairy products. (author)