Archives

JICA aid for nutritious food to pregnant mothers

by Nadira Gunatilleke

JICA, the official agency of implementing technical assistance and part of grant aid given by the Government of Japan to Sri Lanka, has provided a sum of Rs. 7.4 million worth of assistance on research project titled "Development of low cost nutritious food supplements for pregnant mothers" to be carried out at the industrial technology Institute, JICA sources said.

The sources said that JICA provided this assistance under its' research promotion program with the intention of contributing for the poverty alleviation strategies in Sri Lanka. The objectives of the project are to find out the nutritional/clinical status of iron deficiency among pregnant mothers, develop low cost iron rich food supplements and investigate on the iron rich food materials/food combinations, commonly consumed by the Sri Lanka population.

The research team is led by Dr. Jaanaki Gooneratne a Senior Research Officer attached to the Agro and Food Technology Division of the Industrial Technology Institute (ITI). Co-investigators are Dr. Toru Nagao and Dr. Dhammika Dissanayake from Faculty of Medicine, Peradeniya. Some of the Japan overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) presently in Sri Lanka also participated in the Baseline survey, which is to be carried out in among rural, urban, plantation and fishing communities covering 300 pregnant mothers.

The work carried out in the laboratory has shown that food such as Lotus stem, Rathu Thampala, Sarana and Radish leaves are rich sources of iron as compared to several other known food. The study has also shown that not all fruits but lime and other citrus based fruits can increase iron absorption up to 30 percent as demonstrated by in vitro techniques.

Two iron rich food products formulated in the laboratory namely iron rich soup mix and an iron rich food drink will also be introduced to the community by ITI in the near future. These products which have a good acceptability will also be tested for its efficacy on iron absorption. 

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager