Investigation needs regarding carotenoid composition in Argentine foods.

There are no national dietary surveys regarding nutrient intake of Argentin e population. On the other hand, nutrient content of foods in Argentina, as in other Latin American countries, is unknown because there are no data on food composition. Therefore, nutrient intakes must be calculated using for eign composition tables. in relation to vitamin A nutritional status, high prevalence of low vitamin A intake and low plasma retinol levels have been found in the eighties in several groups of universitary students. In this r eport, results of a 7-day dietary survey of students attending the course o f Nutrition in the Universities of Buenos Aires, Lujan and Tucuman are pres ented. Information was processed in a PC Computer (VAN Program, Lujan Unive rsity, Argentina) to obtain the mean daily intake of carotenes with and wit hout provitamin A activity, according to the German Food Composition Tables . The results showed that provitamin A carotenes provided between 40 and 82 % of the vitamin A recommended allowances and that about 20% of the populat ion had total carotene intake lower than 4 mg/day. These results are in agr eement with other dietary surveys carried out in students in previous years and are a consequence of some characteristic feeding habits of the Argenti ne population. In order to obtain more reasonable results regarding actual intakes in our population, study of the composition of national foods would be imperative.