Pots and Pans Combat Anaemia!
Summary of published paper
A
letter in Field Exchange issue 1, raised the interesting idea that
cooking in iron pots and pans might increase the iron content of foods
and that this might be a valuable strategy to help reduce incidence of
anaemia in emergency affected populations. Results from a recent study
suggest that this may well be the case (Eds).
The study set out to determine
the efficacy of cooking food in iron pots to prevent anaemia in premature
healthy infants from families of low socio-economic status between 4-12
months in Brazil. The infants were randomly allocated into two groups at
the beginning of month 4 with follow up to 12 months. The study group of
22 infants had their food cooked in iron pots and the control group of
23 infants had food cooked in aluminium pots. At 12 months of age the group
fed with iron pots had significantly better iron status as measured by
indicators like haemoglobin level. Iron deficiency anaemia was observed
in 36.4% of infants in the group fed food cooked in iron pots and in 73.9%
of infants fed food cooked in aluminium pots. The results indicated that
the iron added to food cooked in the iron pots was bio-available but still
insufficient to satisfy high iron requirements of pre-term infants. The
researchers concluded that cooking in iron pots might be considered a useful
adjunct to programmes to prevent iron deficiency in populations with high
rates anaemia.
Reference
Borigato. V and Martinez.
F (1998): Iron Nutritional Status is Improved in Brazilian Preterm Infants
Fed Food Cooked in Iron Pots. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, March
1998, Vol. 3, pp855-859
Taken from Field Exchange Issue 5, October 1998
http://fex.ennonline.net/5/pots