IN-VITRO AVAILABILITY OF IRON FROM CEREAL MEAL WITH THE ADDITION OF PROTEIN ISOLATES AND FENUGREEK LEAVES (TRIGONELLA FOENUM-GRAECUM)

In vitro iron availability was determined from a standard cereal meal (C) with and without the addition of protein isolates from bovine milk (BP), groundnut milk (GP) and soybean milk (SP). A second set of stud ies were done to investigate the potentially available iron from fenug reek leaves per se and the effect of their addition on the available i ron from the cereal meal. The potentially available iron from the meal increased from 4.91% to 6.73% on the addition of BP. The next best en hancer was GP (4.91% to 6.17%). Although the addition of SP increased the total iron content of the cereal meal significantly, the percent a vailable iron decreased compared to the other milk proteins. The addit ion of fenugreek leaves (100 g/meal) to the meal increased the total i ron content of the meal significantly (3.24 mg to 9.12 mg) (p < .001), however, the available iron was observed to decrease (4.91% vs 4.34%) .