Calcium biofortification and bioaccessibility in soilless “baby leaf” vegetable production

Hydroponic Production of Reduced-Potassium Swiss Chard and Spinach: A Feasible Agronomic Approach to Tailoring Vegetables for Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

“…Ion exchange chromatography (Dionex DX120, Dionex Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA, USA) with a conductivity detector was performed as reported by D'Imperio et al (2016) [3]. For determination of cation contents (Na, K, Mg, and Ca), 1 g of dried sample was ashed in a muffle furnace at 550 • C and digested with 20 mL of 1 M HCl in boiling water (99.5 ± 0.5 • C) for 30 min.…”

“…A novel challenge in agriculture is the production of tailored foods, i.e., foods specifically suitable for target groups of people with particular nutritional needs. In fact, in recent years, a number of studies have highlighted the possibility of producing vegetables for specific physiological conditions, such as biofortified vegetables, with the aim of counteracting different nutritional deficits [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. In general, these authors reported evidence on the use of specific growing protocols aimed to increase the content of specific nutrients in plant tissues, such as iodine (I), silicon (Si), calcium (Ca), selenium (Se), zinc (Zn), and iron (Fe).…”

“…Among different cultivation techniques, a floating hydroponic system, which involves growing plants on trays floating in tanks filled with a nutrient solution (NS), has proven to be an interesting tool to obtain baby leaf vegetables with modified tissue concentrations of specific minerals (Ca and Si) [2][3][4] in edible parts of the plants. By acting on the mineral composition of the NS, it is possible to modify to a certain extent the tissue concentration of target ions.…”

“…We hypothesized that a floating hydroponic system with reduced concentration of K in the NS compared to the typical level for hydroponic production of baby leaf vegetables (200 mg/L) [3] could be adopted to obtain tailored baby leaf vegetables for CKD patients with low K tissue content, satisfactory levels and bioaccessibility of other important nutrients (Ca and Mg), and no increase of oxalate.…”

Effects of Iron Enrichment of Adzuki Bean (Vigna angularis) Sprouts on Elemental Translocation, Concentrations of Proteins, Distribution of Fe-Metalloproteins, and Fe Bioaccessibility

“…10, 2017 the possible cause for such competition and antagonistic reactions. 38 In baby leaves, Ca enrichment promotes a reduction in Mg content in all biofortified vegetables, confirming the antagonism between Ca and Mg. 41 One of the reasons justifying the foliar application of Zn to improve nutritional quality of pea seeds is the large amounts of N and P that decrease Zn uptake. 42 Most people consume stems of adzuki bean sprouts.…”