by
The Food Fortification Initiative
Cameroon’s national, mandatory wheat flour fortification program has led to an improvement in iron, zinc, foliate, and vitamin B12 status among women and children in urban areas, according to a study recently published in The Journal of Nutrition
Maternal anaemia prevalence was also significantly lower after fortification. While fortifying flour with vitamin B12 has been shown to have an impact in controlled settings, this is the first evidence that fortifying wheat flour with vitamin B12 is effective in a mandatory, national programme.
It is only the second effectiveness study of fortifying wheat flour with zinc in a country with mandatory wheat flour fortification. The first was in Fiji where the percent of women of childbearing age with zinc deficiency dropped from 39.3 percent before fortification to zero percent after fortification. For the Cameroon study, researchers conducted surveys two years before and one year after fortification began. Indicators of inflammation and malaria were included.
What makes fortification successful?
Food fortification in Chile, Costa Rica, and Guatemala has improved nutritional outcomes in those countries. What do the programs have in common? Researchers examined the programs to answer that question. Their conclusions were published in the January 2017 Food and Nutrition Bulletin.
They found the following for each country:
• An influential individual supported fortification.
• An institution with research capacity helped monitor impact.
• Food industry participation was essential.
• Programmes were well designed, including choice of food(s) that would reach the vulnerable population.
• Fortification was mandatory nationwide.
• Bioavailable fortificants were used at appropriate levels.
• Monitoring to ensure compliance was enforced.
Industrially milled flour entering rural Pakistan
Tausif Akhtar Janjua, Technical Director for the Food Fortification Programme in Pakistan commented that, “Rural people in Pakistan are relying more on industrially milled flour. Traditionally people in rural areas stored wheat at home and had it milled in village chakki mills where fortification is difficult to sustain. Now they are purchasing more industrially milled flour because it is less expensive than chakki-milled flour.”
Noor Ahmad Khan, Nutrition International Senior Technical Advisor, Nutrition in Food Systems, agreed that industrially milled flour is entering the rural markets in Pakistan.
“The volume of flour produced in chakki mills has decreased in the past 10 to 15 years. In addition to cost savings, Noor said bakers prefer industrially milled flour because it kneads and bakes better than chakki-milled flour. If the Pakistan example becomes common in other areas, fortification of industrially milled flour will have the potential to reach the rural population as well as urban residents.”
Read the full article, HERE.
Cameroon’s national, mandatory wheat flour fortification program has led to an improvement in iron, zinc, foliate, and vitamin B12 status among women and children in urban areas, according to a study recently published in The Journal of Nutrition
Maternal anaemia prevalence was also significantly lower after fortification. While fortifying flour with vitamin B12 has been shown to have an impact in controlled settings, this is the first evidence that fortifying wheat flour with vitamin B12 is effective in a mandatory, national programme.
It is only the second effectiveness study of fortifying wheat flour with zinc in a country with mandatory wheat flour fortification. The first was in Fiji where the percent of women of childbearing age with zinc deficiency dropped from 39.3 percent before fortification to zero percent after fortification. For the Cameroon study, researchers conducted surveys two years before and one year after fortification began. Indicators of inflammation and malaria were included.
What makes fortification successful?
Food fortification in Chile, Costa Rica, and Guatemala has improved nutritional outcomes in those countries. What do the programs have in common? Researchers examined the programs to answer that question. Their conclusions were published in the January 2017 Food and Nutrition Bulletin.
They found the following for each country:
• An influential individual supported fortification.
• An institution with research capacity helped monitor impact.
• Food industry participation was essential.
• Programmes were well designed, including choice of food(s) that would reach the vulnerable population.
• Fortification was mandatory nationwide.
• Bioavailable fortificants were used at appropriate levels.
• Monitoring to ensure compliance was enforced.
Industrially milled flour entering rural Pakistan
Tausif Akhtar Janjua, Technical Director for the Food Fortification Programme in Pakistan commented that, “Rural people in Pakistan are relying more on industrially milled flour. Traditionally people in rural areas stored wheat at home and had it milled in village chakki mills where fortification is difficult to sustain. Now they are purchasing more industrially milled flour because it is less expensive than chakki-milled flour.”
Noor Ahmad Khan, Nutrition International Senior Technical Advisor, Nutrition in Food Systems, agreed that industrially milled flour is entering the rural markets in Pakistan.
“The volume of flour produced in chakki mills has decreased in the past 10 to 15 years. In addition to cost savings, Noor said bakers prefer industrially milled flour because it kneads and bakes better than chakki-milled flour. If the Pakistan example becomes common in other areas, fortification of industrially milled flour will have the potential to reach the rural population as well as urban residents.”
Read the full article, HERE.
The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.
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