Vol. 8, Issue 10 (2019)

Author(s):
Pawandeep Kour, Neeraj Gupta, Fozia Hameed and Mandeep Kour

Abstract:
Nowadays, consumers prefer nutritious and safe food products having natural taste and freshness. The nutritional status of the population is one of the important factors determining the quality and productivity of the population, which in turn affects national productivity. Food fortification is the process whereby nutrients are added to foods (in relatively small quantities) to maintain or improve the quality of the diet of a group, a community or a population. Fortification is the addition of one or more essential nutrients to a food, whether or not normally contained in food, for the purpose of preventing or correcting a demonstrated deficiency of one or more nutrient in the population or specific population groups. Food fortification is regarded as one of the safest and most cost-effective strategies to combat micronutrient deficiencies worldwide, which account for 7.3 % of the global burden of disease, with iron and vitamin A deficiencies included in the 15 leading causes of global disease burden. Fortification is often more cost effective than other strategies. Certain types of fortification are more accurately called enrichment in which micronutrients added to food are those that are lost during processing. Micronutrient malnutrition is frequent and severe in the developing world; nevertheless, it can also represent a public health problem in more industrialized countries. Food fortification has the advantage of delivering essential nutrients to large segments of the population without requiring radical changes in food consumption patterns. Foods used as fortification vehicles vary from country to country, but they generally include cereals and cereal-based products, milk and dairy products, fats and oils, tea and other beverages, and various condiments such as salt, soy sauce and sugar. In practice, the choice of any combination of food vehicle and fortificant is mainly governed by both technological. Fortification of food has been responsible for eradicating most of the vitamin and mineral deficiencies in developed countries.