Assessment of the diets of 73 pre-menopausal women completing dietary frequency questionnaires suggests that 11 per cent consume a daily average of less than 7.5 mg of zinc. A further 26 per cent consume less than 10 mg of zinc daily, an amount considered to approximate the average daily requirement. Dietary records from a second group of 18 working women (aged less than 35 y), covering periods from 6 to 76 days are also analysed. Of these, the zinc intake of 8 women averages less than 7.5 mg/day. The apparent zinc intake of all women shows large day-to-day fluctuations. The presence of such wide variability within individual eating patterns suggests that short-term estimates of dietary zinc intake cannot provide a reliable estimate of overall zinc nutriture.