Retention of Beta Carotene from Selected Greens and Absorption of Beta Carotene from Pumpkin Leaves in Adults

Inadequate dietary intake of vitamin A is the primary cause of vitamin A deficiency and the long term strategy aims at promotion of production and consumption of vitamin A rich foods. Green leafy vegetables are the cheapest and locally available foods rich in provitamin A carotenoids. Apart from the well-known conventional greens, leaves of large number of plants growing wild in the country side could also prove to be good source of beta carotene. Rapid loss of beta carotene on processing and storage of vegetables has also been reported. Limited information is available on the estimation of carotenoids by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) which is now the accepted standard method.