Food fortification with missing vitamins, macro- and micronutrients is a serious intervention in the currently existing structure of human nutrition. The need for such intervention is dictated by the environmental factors associated with changes in the composition and nutritional value of the food we use, as well as the transformation of our way of life connected with the decrease in physical energy. Such products as bread, milk, salt, sugar, drinks, and baby food can be attributed to the food fortified products.
In this paper, the products that can be enriched with proposed elements were considered. These micronutrients are vitamin A, zinc, iron, and folic acid. And flour, milk, and vegetable oil were chosen as the three universal products for fortification.
Iron is an essential micronutrient required by the body as part of the hemoglobin of red blood cells that deliver oxygen to the brain, heart, and all other organs and tissues of man. In general, iron enters the human body during meat and fish products eating. If the power supply does not satisfy the body’s need for iron, iron deficiency anemia is developing. The cheapest way of food fortification with iron is enriched flour. Fortification of flour with iron and folic acid does not pose a risk to human health, but, at the same time, has a certain advantage. Eating bread and pasta from such flour cannot lead to an overdose of iron or folic acid. These additives will not harm the quality of bread and pasta. They are resistant to heat treatment unlike iron and folic acid in natural products. Tea and coffee are the products that block the admission of iron and folic acid into the body. It is important to drink them within an hour after eating.
Zinc is essential for bones formation; it helps treat difficult healing wounds in patients with diabetes or people with poor blood circulation. With the help of zinc, it is possible to eliminate the loss of taste, and reduce cholesterol deposits. Zinc also promotes mental alertness and helps in the infertility treatment. Zinc is absent in the white flour. Therefore, it becomes necessary to fortify flour with zinc.
Milk can be fortified with vitamin A, iron, and folic acid. Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia. Vitamin A lack is the main cause of avoidable blindness. Everyone eats such products as vegetable oil and butter every day. In this case, the issue is solved with a deficit of vital substances in the human body by enriching fat products with vitamin supplements. Fats that do not contain vitamin A (oil, margarine) need to be fortified with vitamin A. Vitamin A in fortified oil in most of the first and second courses remains at 70-80% with the addition of vitamin E. Therefore, in fats and oils which are rich in vitamin A, it is necessary to introduce natural antioxidants like vitamin E. The sunflower oil which contains the concentrate of vitamin A and 0.7% of vitamin E after a year of storage has almost the same amount of vitamin A.
The effectiveness of the consumer products fortification is long enough and convincingly demonstrated. It is frequently made with the help of standard and well-established sets of vitamins or prepared mixtures. However, the convincing evidences are necessary to ensure the necessity of the micronutrients implementation in all cases.