Dive Brief:
- Consuming fortified foods with vitamins and minerals, along with taking dietary supplements, may put people at risk because they are far exceeding daily recommended limits of calcium, folic acid, and iron, according to Consumer Reports.
- "For healthy people eating varied diets adequate in calories, there is little or no evidence that fortification improves health," said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University.
- Too much calcium consumption can increase the risk of kidney stones; too much folic acid can mask vitamin B-12 deficiencies; and too much iron is linked to increases in diabetes and heart problems in people with hemochromatosis, which causes excess deposits of iron in vital organs.
Dive Insight:
These findings leave manufacturers with more questions, as some consumers want fortified products, and some don’t. Fortification adds nutrients back in that are lost during the food production process; however, a whole food will be superior to a processed fortified food, Nestle told The Wall Street Journal back in 2009.
What’s more, the FDA feels that "indiscriminate fortification of foods could result in over- or under fortification in consumer diets and create nutrient imbalances in the food supply," Noah Bartolucci, FDA health communications specialist, told Food Dive. This can lead to health complications for consumers.
The key for manufacturers has been a balance of fortified and non-fortified foods to reach a wider range of consumers. But consumers want foods that are made from fresh ingredients that inherently contain these nutrients, rather than a product fortified with nutrients it lacked.