Assessing the zinc and iron content of vegetables commonly consumed by pregnant and breastfeeding women in Buyende district

Abstract

Five vegetable samples namely; pumpkin leaves (Cucurbita moschata), Doodo (Amaranthus dubuis), Sukuma wiki (Brassica oleracea), cassava leaves (Manihot esculenta) and Jobyo (Cleome gynandra), were collected from six sub-counties of Buyende district. The collection was based on the responses from interviews done using semi-structured questionnaires from the pregnant and breastfeeding women who were sampled randomly from health care I, II, II and IV centers on antenatal and immunization days respectively. The total number of respondents was 491. The vegetables considered for the study out of the many mentioned vegetables by pregnant and breastfeeding women in Buyende district, were the ones with the highest frequency of mention. The analysis for zinc and iron levels was done using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry at 213.9nm and 248.3nm respectively giving results which were in triplicates. All the vegetables had lower zinc and iron levels except for Amaranthus dubuis (0.6467mg of zinc/100g dry weight) and Brassica oleracea (3.24 mg of iron/100g dry weight) respectively. However, for the zinc content in Amaranthus dubuis, it was still too low for consumption by pregnant women in Buyende district compared to RDA for pregnancy of 15mg/day. The iron content too was low for consumption by pregnant women in Buyende district as RDA for pregnant women is 30mg/day and 15mg/day for breastfeeding women