
Do Iron Pots
Enrich the Foods Cooked in Them?By Luis Pons September 25, 2002Cooking with iron pots may help
prevent iron deficiency, according to a joint study by
Cornell University and
Agricultural Research Servicescientists. They compared the bioavailability of iron in Chinese cabbage meals
cooked in pots made of iron and aluminum. The study was conducted at the ARS
U.S. Plant, Soil and
Nutrition Laboratory on Cornell's Ithaca, N.Y., campus by graduate student
Shumei Yun and epidemiologist Jean-Pierre Habicht of the university's
Division of Nutritional
Sciences. They cooked three Chinese cabbage dishes--fresh Chinese cabbage, fresh
Chinese cabbage with vinegar, and fermented Chinese cabbage
(sauerkraut)--identically in iron and aluminum pots, following a common recipe
from northwest China. They concluded that in each case, cabbage dishes cooked in iron pots had
more available iron than those cooked in aluminum ones. The type of food being cooked also seemed to affect the pots' iron. Vinegar
or acidic foods such as sauerkraut appeared to leach more iron from the pots,
making more iron available for absorption. To measure the bioavailable iron, the researchers used the ARS lab's
revolutionary "fake gut." Coupling simulated digestion with a human
intestinal cell line, it is the first system to accurately model in the
laboratory what occurs in the human intestinal tract. Raymond Glahn, the ARS
physiologist who designed the model system, was a collaborator in this study.
Information about the "fake gut" appeared in the August 1999Agricultural Researchmagazine, online at: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/aug99/iron0899.htm ARS is the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's chief scientific research agency. The researchers were drawn to recipes from northwestern China by surveys
that showed significantly lower rates of iron deficiency in resource-poor
regions there, in comparison to similar regions elsewhere in the country.
Plant-based diets that include lots of rice vinegar and sauerkraut cooked in
iron pots are common in the region. Iron deficiency anemia, the most serious form of iron deficiency, is among
the developing world's most prevalent nutritional problems. It is associated
with reduced capacity for physical labor and can lead to illness and death. Story contacts U.S. Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research U.S. Department of Agriculture |