Effectiveness of Iron Fortification on Soy-Based Foods Using Ferrous Bisglycinate in the Presence of Phytic Acid

The major cause of iron deficiency in human body is the low intake of iron from foods. One of strategy to overcome the iron deficiency anemia (IDA) in Indonesia is iron fortification to soya-based food. Phytic acid is a compound that presents in soy-based food and inhibits iron adsorption in digestion thus increasing iron deficiency. Iron fortification is one method to increase iron content in food. In this research, FeSO4.7H2O (1), ferrous bisglycinate (2) and Naglycinate+ FeSO4.7H2O (3) were used as fortificants into three soy-based foods (i.e., soya milk, tempeh, and tofu. The addition of fortificant amount was performed based on the molar ratio of phytic acid contained to iron. The results shows that fortification using ferrous bisglycinate is the most effective compound compared to single compound FeSO4.7H2O and the mixture of Na-glycine and FeSO47H2O. The effectiveness of fortification on soya milk of fortificant 1, 2 and 3 are 48%, 55%, and 33% respectively, whereas on tempeh are 74%, 86%, and 56% respectively and for tofu are 51%, 55%, and 46% respectively. It indicates that ferrous bisglycinate has ability to prevent iron phytate formation due to its character as a chelating agent.