Background: Sweetpotato and potato are fast-maturing staple crops and widely consumed in low-and middle-income countries. Conventional breeding to biofortify these crops with iron could improve iron intakes. To our knowledge, iron absorption from sweetpotato and potato has not been assessed. Objective: The aim was to assess iron absorption from regular and iron-biofortified orange-fleshed sweetpotato in Malawi and yellow-fleshed potato and iron-biofortified purple-fleshed potato in Peru. Methods: We conducted 2 randomized, multiple-meal studies in generally healthy, iron-depleted women of reproductive age. Malawian women (n = 24) received 400 g regular or biofortified sweetpotato test meals and Peruvian women (n = 35) received 500 g regular or biofortified potato test meals. Women consumed the meals at breakfast for 2 wk and were then crossed over to the other variety. We labeled the test meals with 57 Fe or 58 Fe and measured cumulative erythrocyte incorporation of the labels 14 d after completion of each test-meal sequence to calculate iron absorption. Iron absorption was compared by paired-sample t tests. Results: The regular and biofortified orange-fleshed sweetpotato test meals contained 0.55 and 0.97 mg Fe/100 g. Geometric mean (95% CI) fractional iron absorption (FIA) was 5.82% (3.79%, 8.95%) and 6.02% (4.51%, 8.05%), respectively (P = 0.81), resulting in 1.9-fold higher total iron absorption (TIA) from biofortified sweetpotato (P < 0.001). The regular and biofortified potato test meals contained 0.33 and 0.69 mg Fe/100 g. FIA was 28.4% (23.5%, 34.2%) from the regular yellow-fleshed and 13.3% (10.6%, 16.6%) from the biofortified purple-fleshed potato meals, respectively (P < 0.001), resulting in no significant difference in TIA (P = 0.88). Conclusions: FIA from regular yellow-fleshed potato was remarkably high, at 28%. Iron absorbed from both potato test meals covered 33% of the daily absorbed iron requirement for women of reproductive age, while the biofortified orange-fleshed sweetpotato test meal covered 18% of this requirement. High polyphenol concentrations were likely the major inhibitors of iron absorption. These trials were registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as NCT03840031 (Malawi) and NCT04216030 (Peru).

Background Zinc biofortification of rice could sustainably improve zinc status in countries where zinc deficiency is common and rice is a staple, but its efficacy has not been tested. Fatty acid desaturases (FADS) are putative new zinc status biomarkers. Objective Our objective was to test the efficacy of zinc-biofortified rice in preschool-aged children with zinc-deficiency. Our hypothesis was that consumption of zinc-biofortified rice would increase plasma zinc concentration (PZC). Design We conducted a 9-month, double-masked, intervention trial in 12–36 month-old rural Bangladeshi children, most of whem were who were zinc-deficient (PZC &lt; 70 µg/dL) and stunted (n = 520). The children were randomized to receive either control rice (CR) or zinc-biofortified rice (BFR) provided in cooked portions to their households daily, with compliance monitoring. The primary outcome was PZC. Secondary outcomes were zinc deficiency, linear growth, infection-related morbidity, FADS activity indices, intestinal fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP) and fecal calprotectin. We applied sparse serial sampling for midpoint measures and analyzed data by intention-to-treat using mixed-effects models. The trial was registered under NCT03079583. Results At baseline, median (IQR) PZC was 60.4 (56.3–64.3) µg/dL, 78.1% of children were zinc deficient and 59.7% were stunted. Mean ± SD daily zinc intakes from the CR and BFR during the trial were 1.20 ± 0.34 and 2.22 ± 0.47 mg/day, respectively (P &lt; 0.001). There were no significant time-by-treatment effects on PZC, zinc deficiency prevalence, FADS activity, I-FABP or fecal calprotectin (all P &gt; 0.05). There was a time-treatment interaction for height-for-age z scores (P &lt; 0.001) favoring the BFR group. The morbidity longitudinal prevalence ratio (LPR) (95% CI) was 1.08 (1.05,1.12) comparing the BFR and CR groups, due to more upper respiratory tract illness in the BFR group. Conclusions Consumption of zinc-biofortified rice for 9 months providing ∼1 mg of additional zinc daily to Bangladeshi children did not significantly affect PZC, prevalence of zinc deficiency or FADS activity. Clinical Trial Registry: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03079583

BACKGROUND Zinc‐biofortified rice could contribute to zinc intake in deficient populations, but processing it into parboiled rice could affect this potential benefit. Zinc and iron true retention (TR) in milled rice produced under conditions resembling household and commercial parboiled methods was evaluated. Zinc and iron TR in milled rice obtained from biofortified and non‐biofortified rice subjected to different soaking temperatures during parboiling was also evaluated. RESULTS Conditions resembling commercial parboiling methods resulted in 52.2–59.7% zinc TR and 55.4–79.1% iron TR, whereas those used for household parboiling resulted in 70.7–79.6% zinc TR and 78.2–119.8% iron TR. Zinc TR in milled (8–16% bran removal) biofortified and non‐biofortified parboiled rice was 50.6–66.8% when soaking rough rice at 20 °C and 29.9–56.0% when soaking rough rice at 65 °C; both had lower zinc TR than non‐parboiled rice (58.0–80.6%). Iron TR was generally similar between milled non‐parboiled and parboiled rice (26.2–67.6%) and between parboiled biofortified and non‐biofortified milled rice. CONCLUSION Parboiling conditions used to obtain milled rice targeted for own household consumption resulted in higher zinc and iron TR compared to parboiling conditions used for milled rice targeted for markets. More zinc from the inner endosperm moved towards the outer layers at high soaking temperature, resulting in lower zinc TR for milled parboiled rice soaked in hotter water. Parboiled rice soaked at temperatures used in households could provide more zinc to diets compared to rice soaked in hotter water commonly used in large rice mills, especially when rice is extensively milled. © 2021 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.