Milk is a valuable source of dietary calcium and it becomes important to establish whether incorporation of dietary fiber (DF), a health promoting food constituent, would lead to any undesirable impact on the bioavailability of milk calcium or not. The DF fortified spray dried partly skimmed milk powder with prestandardized fiber Blend-I (psyllium husk, oat fiber, MCC, inulin) and fiber Blend-II (psyllium husk, oat bran, wheat fiber and inulin) was subjected to rat-feeding studies to examine the possible effects on the bioavailability of milk calcium. The differences for calcium absorption and retention among diets containing DF Blend-I, DF Blend-II and cellulose (control) were found to be non-significant. It was evident that the milk calcium bioavailability of the diets containing two fiber formulations tested (at the levels studied) was at par with that of control standard diet containing only cellulose as DF. Therefore, it is reasonable to incorporate these DF blends into dairy products, and thereby add value.
Keywords: Calcium bioavailability; Dietary fiber; Inulin; Oat bran; Psyllium husk; Wheat fiber.