title: The selenium content of infant food.
abstract: The selenium content of food exhibits great regional differences. Food samples of infants and young children from the North Rhine-Westphalia State in the Fed. Rep. of Germany were analysed by instrumental neutron activation analysis and showed that the average selenium content of local vegetable and fruit is below 5 ng/g wet weight. Only samples of potatoes and bananas exhibit higher selenium contents. The bananas, probably imported from different areas of the world, show an extremely high variance with values between 4 and 164 ng Se/g. Commercially available ready-for-use meals for infants or young children have a low Se content (median 24 ng/g) which is comparable to cow's milk. Besides eggs, cereals enriched with milk and some other cereal products contain more than 100 ng Se/g.
mesh_terms: D005504:Food Analysis / Q000379:methods; D005860:Germany, West; D007225:Infant Food / Q000032:analysis*; D009501:Neutron Activation Analysis; D012643:Selenium / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D012643:Selenium