THE ABSORPTION OF CAROTENE FROM VEGETABLES BY HUMAN SUBJECTS

Ten adults with equal number of males and females, aged 17-32 years, were selected as experimental subjects. Cooked vegetable containing 3-4.5 mg of carotene was given to each subject daily for three consecutive days. The vegetables tested were spinach, colza, carrot, sweet potato, dehydrated colza and dehydrated carrot. An oil concentrate with a carotene content of 0.5 mg per ml prepared from the leaves of alfalfa in this laboratory was also tested.The average percentages of absorption of the ingested carotene from different sources were as follows: spinach 25.5％, colza 36.2％, carrot 27.4％, sweet potato 19.7％ dehydrated colza 29.0％ dehydrated carrot 36.7％ and carotene concentrateIt had been shown that there was no significant effect on the absorption of carotene from vegetable by increasing oil supply in the diet. A daily intake of 16 g of vegetable oil for each subject was found to be sufficient for the absorption of carotene in the cooked vegetables. The increase of the oil consumption from 16 to 48 g daily did not improve the absorption of carotene.There was great variation in the result with different subjects and also with in different test peroids for the same subject on the same diet. Part of the variation may be attributed to the difference in carotene content among the servings resulting from uneven distribution of carotene in vegetables.