Iron bioavailability of rats fed liver, lentil, spinach and their mixtures.

To study the effects of dietary iron source (basal diet-FeSO4 x 7H2O, liver, lentil, spinach, liver + lentil, liver+spinach and lentil+spinach) on iron bioavailability, fifty-six Albino Sprague Dawley derived male 21 days old rats were fed on iron-deficient diet (7.8 mg Fe kg(-1) diet) and the mentioned seven iron containing diets (40 mg Fe kg(-1) diet) for 10 days. Rats fed liver diet showed higher iron apparent absorption (52.1%), hemoglobin (Hb) gain (0.94 g/100 mL), Hb-iron gain (1.2 mg), Hb-regeneration efficiency (HRE%) (50.8%), relative efficiency of HRE% (106.5%), packed cell volume gain (2.22%) and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (0.64 g dL(-1)). Liver resulted in an increase in these parameters when mixed with lentil and spinach diets. However, rats fed iron free diet showed the higher dry matter absorption.