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Fortification : Leveraging Evidence For Improving Nutrition

Poor dietary diversity continues to drive malnutrition in many low and middle income countries. Consumers often lack access to diverse, nutrient-dense diets, particularly if costs of nutritious foods are high, availability is low, or typical dietary practices - for cultural or practical reasons - lack diversity.(1) In the absence of sufficient dietary diversity, fortification presents an important opportunity to address micronutrient deficiencies and prevent their long-term consequences, while efforts to further diversify the diet continue. Context-appropriate fortification measures can be a cost-effective tool to increasing the nutrient density of foods and can reduce non-affordability of a nutritious diet. Many products can be fortified, including: grains and flours like rice, wheat flour, and maize meal; biofortified crops including staple cereals, roots and tubers, pulses, and vegetables; specialized nutritious foods (SNF) such as micronutrient powders and infant cereals; and oils, milk, soy sauce, iodized salt and other processed products