Bioavailability of iron from home prepared weaning foods

Abstract

The bioavailability of iron in rice combined with beans, soyabeans and egg yolk as home prepared weaning mixes and FeSO 4 − supplemented diets was evaluated using the haemoglobin regeneration assay. Thirty six weanling mate rats were made anemic by feeding a basal diet containing 7.1mg Fe/100g of food sample. After depleting the rats of haemoglobin (Hb) for four weeks, they were assigned in group of six on the test diets for a 14 day repletion period. Iron from rice and beans, rice and soyabeans, and rice and egg yolk mixes, were converted to Hb with the relative efficiencies of 67, 73 and 72% of the FeSO 4 7H 2 O diet respectively. Rice based weaning food mixes could make significant contributions to available iron in the diets of infants. The implications of this on iron nutrition are discussed.