Fortified Foods May Hold Key to Realising Vision 2030

Nairobi Star (Nairobi)

John Muchangi

20 June 2011

Sugar has become the latest product to be fortified with an important vitamin in Kenya. The move comes after a Unicef report last year revealed staggering mineral deficiencies in Kenyan children.

It revealed unless this trend is stopped, the country will soon be grappling with millions of stunted citizens, with poor eyesight, and who will not help Kenya achieve Vision 2030. And so last week, Mumias Sugar Company added Vitamin A to their sugar.

Vitamin A helps prevent blindness and in the repair and growth of body tissues. “It is part of our service to the Kenyan people,” said Mumias managing director Evans Kidero, while also assuring the price of the fortified sugar will be affordable.

While functional foods are not new in the world, local manufacturers and consumers have now picked the trend. The move is fully supported by the Ministry of Public Health and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) says it makes business sense. The government has now listed fortification among key measures that might check malnutrition among children and women.

It involves adding micronutrients to foodstuffs. It can be purely a commercial choice to provide extra nutrients in a food, or a public health policy to reduce dietary deficiencies in a population.

In Kenya, for instance, all table salts should by law be iodised while most brands of toothpaste carry fluoride salts to prevent tooth decay. Head of nutrition department in the Ministry of Public Health Terry Wefwafwa says if the public are properly sensitised, fortified foods may create a major change. She warns development plans like the Vision 2030 are already threatened by poor nutrition.

According to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS), about 33 per cent of Kenyan children under five have remained stunted since 1998.

Wefwafwa says effects of this condition are serious and irreversible after the first two years. “Such children perform poorly in school and will not benefit from free primary education,” she says. The ministry has already identified key dietary minerals and vitamins whose deficiency is already becoming evident.

They include iodine, whose deficiency the ministry says easily causes poor brain development. Scientists say even moderate iodine deficiency, especially in pregnant women and infants, lowers intelligence by 10 to 15 IQ points.

Parents will be shocked to know that 400,000 new children each year do not crack it in class simply because they are not consuming iodized salt, according to government estimates.

Their parents may even falsely believe their children are gifted in other areas like sports and music. “Yet iodised salt is easily available across the country,” says Wefwafwa.

Next is Vitamin A. Unicef says 84 per cent of children lack this vitamin, causing deaths of 10, 000 children every year. Iron deficiency has also been noted as a major nutrition problem in Kenya.

Lack of iron makes children tired, slow and listless, so they perform poorly in school. It is also estimated to contribute to 13 per cent of the disease burden among adult women.

This mineral can be found in foods like meat, fortified breakfast cereals, eggs, boiled spinach, whole meal bread made from enriched flour and soya beans among others.

The ministry is now encouraging women to exclusively breastfeed their children for the first six months as this will give them most of the required minerals. But only 32 per cent women currently do this, according to the 2008 demographic and health survey. Wefwafwa said clinical visits are also a must because it is here women are advised on balanced diets for children.

According to last year’s Kenya Nutrition Profile, there are 2.8 million stunted children who will never fully benefit from FPE and will earn poor salaries in future if they survive.

The report, produced by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, says stunted children are those too short for their age because of general poor diet. “The underperformance in schools leads to reduced productivity and income-earning capacity in adult life,” says the report.

Head of Unicef Dr Olivia Yambi says there are several interventions Kenya can take. These include dietary diversification, fortification and supplementation.

She says Vitamin A supplementation for children six months to five years can prevents many deaths. “Despite the known benefits of Vitamin A supplementation including the GOK’s pronounced commitment to the programme, budget allocation has been at best paltry,” says a Unicef evaluation report.

The report shows the government, for instance needed to allocate just Sh14 million in the 2009/10 financial year to buy the supplements and a further Sh2 million for monitoring.

Breastfeeding is also seen as a highly cost-effective way to improve children health, only second to insect treated nets in Kenya. Benefits include improved infant health, increased birth spacing, and economic efficiency in the use of food and other resources.

Fortification of widely consumed staple foods is also recognised as a low-cost strategy with significant public health benefits. “Food fortification makes business sense. We already have a good example from the salt industry where the fortified products are in high demand throughout the region,” says Dr Yambi. She says the latest sugar fortification demonstrates the potential role private sector plays in health and development in Kenya.

Currently, the local market has fortified flour, edible oils and salts. Critics however say the focus should be on whole foods rather that fortified products. “Processing destroys nutrients, and the more processing there is, the more destruction you get,” says Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, at New York University in an article. “Fortification adds back some nutrients, so overall you’re better off with a processed fortified food than a processed unfortified one. But a whole food is always going to be superior.” And while fortified foods may hold the future to food business in Kenya, the government says manufacturers should make them affordable.

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