Rice Fortification
- May 1, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Rice Fortification
Subject: Science & Tech
Section: Biotechnology
Context- As many as 600 of the 900 major rice mills in Telangana have installed blending machines to add micronutrients to parboiled rice milled from paddy bought by them in the rabi season.
Concept-
- Move comes in the wake of Food Corporation of India agreeing to buy only fortified parboiled rice from Telangana.
Fortification:
- Fortification is the addition of key vitamins and minerals such as iron, iodine, zinc, Vitamin A & D to staple foods such as rice, milk and salt to improve their nutritional content.
- These nutrients may or may not have been originally present in the food before processing.
Fortification of Rice:
- Rice fortification is the practice of increasing the content of essential micronutrients in rice and to improve the nutritional quality of the rice.
- Rice fortification is done using extrusion technology.
- Fortified rice kernels are produced from a mixture using an extruder machine.
- These kernels are then blended with regular rice to produce fortified rice.
- The micronutrients that are used to blend included iron, folic acid and Vitamins D and B-12.
- The fortification of rice follows that of salt, oils, milk and wheat, which is in the Centre basket for micronutrient addition by 2024.
- Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has formulated a comprehensive regulation on fortification of foods namely ‘Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulations, 2016’.
- These regulations set the standards for food fortification and encourage the production, manufacture, distribution, sale and consumption of fortified foods.
- Rice is the world’s most important staple food. An estimated 2 billion people eat rice every day, forming the mainstay of diets across large of Asia and Africa.
- Regular milled rice is low in micronutrients and serves primarily as a source of carbohydrate only. The fortification of rice is a major opportunity to improve nutrition.
- Fortified rice contains Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B12, Folic Acid, Iron and Zinc.
- According to the FSSAI norms, 1 kg fortified rice shall contain iron (28mg-42.5mg), folic acid (75-125 microgram) and Vitamin B-12 (0.75-1.25 microgram). In addition, rice may also be fortified with micronutrients, singly or in combination, at the level– zinc(10mg-15mg), Vitamin A (500-750 microgram RE), Vitamin B1 (1mg-1.5mg), Vitamin B2 (1.25mg-1.75mg), Vitamin B3 (12.5mg-20mg) and Vitamin B6 (1.5mg-2.5mg) per Kg.