Nutrient and other trace elements in instant soups

Instant soups are a new group of dried foods and will play an important role in the nutrition of people because they fulfill present and future social consumer requirements. Instrumental neutron activation analysis has been applied in this work to determine the trace elements cesium, cobalt, iron, rubidium, scandium, strontium, silver and zinc in instant and long-time soups from the Greek market. According to our results, instant soups have the same iron content as those reported in the literature for bovine muscle, rice, legumes, porcine muscle and some meat products. Instant soup zinc content is the same as those reported for avian muscle, onions, rice, potatoes and sausages. Moreover the consumption of one plateful of instant soup offers to the human body about 8% of the daily required iron and about 2% of the daily required zinc. (author) 15 refs.; 4 tabs