Micronutrient deficiencies are particularly severe in Bangladesh. Understanding how household income, food prices, parental education and nutritional knowledge, and culturally based customs and food preferences interact to determine food consumption patterns (particularly for nonstaple foods), and so micronutrient intake, can provide crucial information for designing policies and intervention programs to improve human nutrition. Within the typical dietary patterns of the Bangladeshi survey population, the key food group with respect to micronutrient consumption is vegetables, providing nearly 95 percent of vitamin A intake, 75 percent of vitamin C intake, and 25 percent of iron intake. Vegetables are the least expensive sources of all of these nutrients.... |