Breakfast cereals are the most highly fortified foods on the market, according to ''Understanding Nutrition,'' a 2008 book by Eleanor Noss Whitney and Sharon Rady Rolfes. The most widely used ready-to-eat fortified cereal is Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, says the research firm Packaged Facts.
Fortification
Fortification is the addition of vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients to a food. The purpose of fortifying foods, according to the USAID Micronutrient Program, is to replace nutrients lost in food processing or to address a nutritional deficiency in a targeted population. Sometimes the nutrients added to foods are already present but in insufficient quantities. Other times the food does not contain the nutrients. Food producers fortify some foods voluntarily, such as cereals and ''highly processed luxury foods,'' according to USAID. Governments require the fortification of other foods, usually staples such as flour and salt, for public health reasons. Two billion people, or about 30 percent of the world’s population, suffer from micronutrient deficiencies.
History
Foods are fortified throughout much of the world, according to Project Healthy Children. In 1924, iodine was first added to salt in Michigan to help reduce the 47 percent goiter rate. The success of that program led to the voluntary iodization of salt across the entire U.S. and sparked the food-fortification trend, according to a "Wall Street Journal" article.
In 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration mandated the addition of folic acid to breads and cereals to help reduce neural tube defects in babies. By 2004, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-sponsored study reported the number of infants born with neural-tube defects had decreased by 25 percent.
Benefits
Breakfast cereals are fortified with nutrients including folic acid, riboflavin, thiamine, vitamins A, B-12, C and D, niacin and pyridoxine. Breakfastcereal.org reports that a bowl of fortified cereal typically provides 25 percent or more of the daily requirements for many vitamins and 17 percent of the daily requirement for iron. Cereal is a major source of folic acid and the main dietary source of thiamin. Eating cereal with milk increases calcium in the diet as well. Fortified breakfast cereals also provide Vitamin D, which is difficult to obtain during the winter months when sun exposure is decreased.
Process
Fortified breakfast cereals are an important factor in the nutritional adequacy of the American diet, according to a research document produced for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In the U.S., a serving of fortified breakfast cereal generally provides 25 percent of the recommended daily requirement of thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pyridoxine, folate, ascorbic acid and vitamin A, as well as 10 to 25 percent of the required iron. Minerals and heat-stable vitamins are added to the cereal before processing. Vitamins affected by heat, such as A and C, are sprayed onto the cereal after high-temperature processing.
References
- The USAID Micronutrient Program: Food Fortification
- FAO: Food Fortification: Technology and Quality Control
- Project Healthy Children: Food Fortification
- FORTAF: Properties of Vitamins Used in Cereal Fortification (Section 7 in MI Fortification Handbook)
- BreakfastCereal.org: Nutritional Information
- Packaged Facts: The Fortified Foods Market
- "Understanding Nutrition"; Eleanor Noss Whitney and Sharon Rady Rolfes; 2008
- "Wall Street Journal": Fortified Foods: How Healthy Are They?
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