Iron and Zinc in Fortified Soybean-based Fruit Juice and Soymilk

Abstract

Soybean based fruit juices and soymilk has been constantly increasing their market share among non-alcoholic beverages in the Brazilian market. Besides, companies adding some essential minerals like iron and zinc to these products, aiming to produce healthier beverages, are more appealing to their consumers. Although according to the Brazilian regulation, the mineral content must be informed at the labels, some companies do not show such values or show information of just some of them. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to evaluate the iron and zinc content in samples of soymilk and soybean based fruit juices commercialized in Brazil, also establishing the Fe: Zn molar ratio for these types of products. In soybean based fruit juices the iron levels ranged from 0.08 to 1.38 mg 100mL -1 (average of 0.96 mg 100mL -1 ± 0.29), and the zinc ones from 0.04 to 0.68 mg 100mL -1 (average of 0.43 mg 100mL -1 ± 0.12. In soymilk the same minerals content ranged from 0.38 to 1.738 mg 100mL -1 (average of 1.08 mg 100mL -1 ± 0.71), 0.25 to 0.38 mg 100mL -1 (average of 0.29 mg 100mL -1 ± 0.04), respectively. These results indicated that samples of soymilk contained, in average, more iron, when compared to soybean based fruit juices. For zinc levels, it was observed an inverse. The iron: zinc (Fe: Zn) molar ratio was in average 2.6:1.0 and 4.4:1 for soybean based fruit juices and soymilk, respectively. For all samples the Fe: Zn molar ratio indicated that iron and zinc absorption could be successful.