Carrots are a leading source e of vitamin A in the Guatemalan diet. Analyses of carrots using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC’) indicated that carrots have more than twice the amount of β carotene reported in the Latin American food compositio n tables. The consequence for the recalculation of daily vitamin A intake in a data set of pregnant pert-urban women is a 12% reduction in the number of women consuming <750 RE and a 19% reduction in the number with an intake of <600 RE. To the extent that earlier anayses underestimated the β carotene content of’ carrots, the estimates of vitamin A intake in Latin America have been variably and falsely low, depending on the contribution of carrots to the individuals reported diet.
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