Iron deficiency anemia is the most prevalent nutritional deficiency in the world and food fortification is a cost-effective approach to combat it. This paper reviews the food fortification process with micronutrients, with special emphasis on iron and the most critical steps and common difficulties found when implementing a program. The first step is to measure the magnitude of the problem and ...

Food fortification is a widely used approach to increase micronutrient intake in the diet. High coverage is essential for achieving impact. Data on coverage is limited in many countries, and tools to assess coverage of fortification programs have not been standardized. In 2013, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition developed the Fortification Assessment Coverage Toolkit (FACT) to carry out...

This report presents the available evidence on the magnitude of micronutrient deficiencies in countries in the Western Pacific Region (WPR), identifies nutrient inadequacies per capita per day based on 1999 Food Balance Sheet data and the steps required to alleviate these inadequacies through micronutrient fortification of food. Suitable food vehicles for fortification within each country are a...

Common sense dictates that we should learn from our failures. However, reporting ‘failure’ is more difficult than reporting ‘success’ and it is generally less rewarding, thus there are fewer opportunities to learn from failures than from successes. A study from Brazil in the current issue of this journal reports that iron fortification of flour had no impact on anaemia in children and it is lik...

BACKGROUND Vitamins and minerals are essential for growth and metabolism. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 2 billion people are deficient in key vitamins and minerals. Groups most vulnerable to these micronutrient deficiencies are pregnant and lactating women and young children, given their increased demands. Food fortification is one of the strategies that has been used s...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the impact of fortification by comparing food records and selected biochemical indicators of nutritional status pre- and post-fortification. DESIGN Mean intake from 24 h recalls (n 142) was compared with the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) to determine the proportion with inadequate intake. In a subsample (n 34), diet and serum retinol, folate, ferritin and Zn wer...

While fortification of staple foods and condiments has gained enormous global traction, poor performance persists throughout many aspects of implementation, most notably around the critical element of regulatory monitoring, which is essential for ensuring foods meet national fortification standards. Where coverage of fortified foods is high, limited nutritional impact of fortification programs ...

PURPOSE Besides the adverse health effects of a low folate intake, the risks of high intakes of folic acid have moved into the focus. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential range of folate and folic acid intake of the German population under consideration of different fortification scenarios. METHODS Food consumption data of 13,926 participants of the German National Nutrition...