[en] Weanling male rats were made anemic in 7 days by feeding a low iron diet and bleeding. Healthy rats were fed the low iron diet supplemented with ferrous sulfate (29 ppm Fe). Each group was subdivided and fed for 10 days on test diets containing about 29 ppm iron that were formulated with meat:spinach mixtures or meat:soy mixtures to provided 100:0, 75:25, 50:50, 25:75, or 0:100% of the dietary iron from these sources or from a ferrous sulfate diet. After 3 days on the diets all rats were dosed orally with 2 or 5 micro curries of ⁵⁹Fe after a 18 hour fast and refeeding for 1.5 hours. Iron status influenced liver iron, carcass iron, liver radio activity and percent of radioactive dose retained. Diet influenced fecal iron and apparent absorption of iron. In iron bioavailability studies assessment methodology and iron status of the test subject greatly influences the estimates of the value of dietary sources of iron