Nutritional characterization of foods fortified with micronutrients in the Spanish market. The BADALI project

Abstract

Although fortified foods may reduce micronutrient deficiencies, they may contain nutrients negatively associated to health. The aim of this work is to provide a comprehensive study of micronutrient fortified processed foods available in Spain and to compare them with unfortified foods. For this purpose, 4313 items were analysed belonging to 12 food types and 16.6 % of them were fortified with micronutrients. Fruit drinks and milk substitutes had the highest prevalence (42.9 % and 36.3 % respectively) and vitamin D and calcium were the micronutrients most frequently added (8.3 % and 7.1 % respectively). Fortified foods used nutrition claims more often than the unfortified version (78.2 % vs 43.6 %), most of them about micronutrients (74 % vs 3.9 %). Both nutritional improvements and deteriorations in the nutrient composition were observed in fortified foods compared to the unfortified version. Regarding the nutritional quality, 83.7 % of fortified and 80.8 % of unfortified foods were classified as "less healthy". Fortified foods presented less items high in total and saturated fat (40 % and 49 % less), while more in free sugar, sodium and more had sweeteners (15 %, 22 % and 66 % more). Therefore, this work shows that most fortified foods cannot be considered healthy and that they are not nutritionally better than the unfortified version.