The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans emphasizes consumption of 4.5 cups of fruits and vegetables daily. However, average fruit and vegetable intake of US adults is only 2.6 cups. This low consumption of fruits and vegetables may further result in the limited availability of fat soluble, health-promoting, phytochemicals such as carotenoids from these foods. Dietary carotenoids have beneficial biological properties including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects and scientific research supports the protective effects of carotenoids against many degenerative diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, age-related macular degeneration, and some types of cancer. Therefore, either low intake or inefficient bioavailability of carotenoids from fruits and vegetables may reduce their potential effectiveness as disease preventative compounds. The bioavailability of carotenoids from a meal can be affected by several factors, including food matrix, type of food processing or cooking, interactions with other dietary compounds during digestion and absorption, gut status which may affect digestion and absorption processes, and nutritional status. Co-consumption of carotenoid rich foods with dietary lipids may be one of the most effective stimulators of carotenoid absorption among factors that influence their bioaccessibility and bioavailability. Eggs are known to be a highly bioavailable source of carotenoids, presumably due to the presence of lipid and phospholipid in egg yolk. The highly bioavailable nature of carotenoids from eggs suggest that egg derived factors may be leveraged to improve bioavailability of other carotenoids found in co-consumed fruits and vegetables. While promising, very limited data exist on the impact of a co-consumed food source of lipid, such as eggs, to enhance carotenoid absorption. This study is designed to assess the beneficial effects of egg consumption on carotenoids absorption from a complex meal, beyond those found in egg.
The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans emphasizes consumption of 4.5 cups of fruits and vegetables daily but average intake of US adults is only 2.6 cups. This low consumption of fruits and vegetables results in limited availability of certain nutrients found in these foods such as carotenoids. Dietary carotenoids have health beneficial properties and are known to fight against disease. Eggs are known to be a good source of carotenoids and eggs may improve the absorption of carotenoids found in co-consumed fruits and vegetables. Therefore, we are interested to see if consuming eggs with a mixed-vegetable salad will increase carotenoid absorption.