Determination of iodine content in foods produced by family farmers

UNLABELLED: Monitoring iodine consumption is important for preventing related diseases. OBJECTIVE: quantify the iodine content in foods produced by family farmers in the Geographic Region of Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil. METHODS: samples of lettuce, cabbage, beans, cornmeal, milk, honey, eggs, coffee powder and cheese were collected from 306 households in eight cities. The colorimetric method was used to quantify iodine in food samples. Data analyzes were carried out using the Statistical Program for Social Science (SPSS) version 21.0. It was verified whether there was a difference in the concentration of iodine in foods between different cultivars, cities and seasons using the Mann Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis test, with multiple comparisons using the Dunn test. RESULTS: 580 samples were analyzed. No difference was found between lettuce, cabbage and bean cultivars. There was a difference between cities in the iodine content of eggs (p ≤ 0.001), cheese (p = 0.028) and milk (p = 0.001). No difference was found between the seasons regarding the iodine content in cabbage and lettuce. CONCLUSION: the determination of iodine in foods is characterized as an initial study for the inclusion of iodine in food composition tables.