Project Number: 5306-51530-018-23
Project Type: Trust

Start Date: Oct 01, 2010
End Date: May 31, 2013

Objective:
Biofortification of staple food crops is a promising strategy for increasing dietary Vitamin A intake and improving Vitamin A status in populations at risk of deficiency. The purpose of this study is to determine the Vitamin A equivalence of carotenoids in high-carotenoid varieties of cassava. #2. The additional purpose of this study is to determine the Vitamin A equivalence of carotenoids in high-carotenoid varieties of cassava gari.

Approach:
We plan to conduct a single site Phase II intervention study in healthy adult women. Women will serve as their own controls, and will be fed three treatments in random order: a single meal of white, non-biofortified low-carotenoid cassava with oil, a similar meal of bio-fortified cassava that is high in carotenoids without oil, and a similar meal of bio-fortified cassava with oil. Carotenoids and vitamin A will be measured in the triacylglycerol-rich lipoprotein (TRL) fraction of plasma by standard methods involving ultracentrifugation (to concentrate the TRL fraction) followed by reversed-phase HPLC using electrochemical detection. We plan to collect sufficient data to identify the times of the first appearance and peak concentrations of retinol, retinyl esters, alpha-carotene (AC), beta-carotene (BC), beta-carotene isomers (BCI) and cryptoxanthin (CX) in TRL when a single meal containing moderately high amounts of carotenoids from bio-fortified cassava is fed to healthy adult women. We will use these data to determine the vitamin A equivalency of bio-fortified cassava in adult women. Documents Trust with Harvestplus. Log 43059. #2. Garification detoxifies cassava and increases its palatability, but destroys carotenoids in the process. We plan to compare the effects of two fermentation times (3 and 4 days), two roasting temperatures, and several sequential roasting times on the retention of carotenoids in gari made from three different biofortified cultivars of cassava. The goals of this project, henceforth called the ‘Gari project’, are to: 1) develop standardized procedures for making gari from biofortified cassava that will decrease variability between preparations and thus enhance our ability to identify differences in methods and cultivars that result in higher carotenoid concentrations: and 2) to identify the cultivar and garification treatment that has the highest carotenoid concentration after garification.