The Iron Content of Plant and Animal Foods.*

As more data are accumulated it becomes increasingly evident that great variations exist in the mineral content of different samples of the same foodstuff. Only when a large number of samples from different parts of the country have been analyzed will it be possible to approximate the probable mineral content of our diet. With the data now available it is difficult to draw any safe conclusion as to the adequacy or inadequacy of the supply of the mineral elements in an average diet. In a previous paper (1) the iron content of certain tissues was given. In the present paper figures will be given for the percentage of iron in about 150 of our common food materials. Most of these analyses are of plant materials, but figures for a number of samples of fish and poultry are also included. Included in the averages are the data reported in two previous papers (2, 3) for the iron content of about twenty vegetables.