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The Utilization of Calcium in Carrots, Lettuce and String Beans in Comparison with the Calcium in Milk¹

Division of Animal Nutrition, University of Illinois, Urbana

In a series of ten experiments on growing rats, involving equalization of calcium intakes and of gains in body weight among comparable animals, the calcium retention was determined by carcass analysis following a period of experimental feeding sufficiently long to permit gains in weight of 100 gm. The availability of the calcium of various vegetable foods and of unpasteurized liquid milk was compared in each case with that of the calcium of "dry milk solids" at levels of calcium intake insufficient to promote maximum calcification of the bones. The results obtained justify the following conclusions:

1. The commercial desiccation of milk does not appreciably impair the value of its calcium in the nutrition of growing animals.

2. The calcium of milk is definitely better utilized than the calcium of the vegetables tested. Under the conditions of these experiments, the calcium of fresh carrots, fresh lettuce and fresh green string beans was 85, 80, and 74%, respectively, as available as the calcium of milk.

3. The steam cooking of carrots and the commercial canning of green string beans do not modify appreciably the value of these vegetables as sources of dietary calcium.

4. The constituents of vegetables tend to depress the utilization of the calcium of other foods with which they are fed. The maximum extent of this effect may be determined by the extent to which the calcium of the vegetable, when fed as the sole source of calcium, is utilized in comparison with the calcium of milk.

Manuscript received 17 May 1940.