Effects of vegetables on iron and zinc availability in cereals and legumes

Despite large scale intervention programmes, iron deficiency anemia and zinc deficiency remains the most widely prevalent nutritional problem in the world. Widespread deficiencies of iron and zinc, commonly found in developing country such as China dependent on plant foods, necessitate food-based strategies to maximise their bioavailability from plant foods. In this paper, β-carotene-rich vegetables were evaluated for their effects on the bioavailability of iron and zinc from cereals and legumes by employing in vitro digestions. Addition of carrot or spinach (2.5 g and 5 g per 10 g of grain) significantly enhanced the bioavailability of iron and zinc from the food grains, the percent increase being 9.4–73.8 in the case of carrot and 11– 179% in the case of spinach. Pure β-carotene added at an equivalent level also enhanced the bioavailability of iron (9.6–97.6% increase) and zinc (13–92.4% increase) from the cereals examined.