Food-based Approaches to Meeting Vitamin and Mineral Needs...continued #1.

Reference from the joint report of FAO/WHO expert consultation on Human Vitamins and Minerals verbatim. (Chapter 2)

Advice for a healthy diet should provide both a quantitative and qualitative description of the diet for it to be understood by individuals, who should be given information on both size and number of servings per day. The quantitative aspects include the estimation of the amount of nutrients in foods and their bio-availability in the form they are actually consumed. 

Unfortunately, available food composition data for most foods currently consumed in the world are incomplete, outdated, or insufficient for evaluating true bio-availability. The qualitative aspects relate to the biologic utilisation of nutrients in the food as consumed by humans and explore the potential for interaction among nutrients. Such an interaction may enhance or inhibit the bio-availability of a nutrient from a given food source. 

Including foods in the diet, which have high micronutrient density – such as pulses or legumes, vegetables (including green leafy vegetables), and fruits – is the preferred way of ensuring optimal nutrition including micronutrient adequacy for most population groups. 

Most population groups afflicted by micronutrient deficiency largely subsist on refined cereal grain or tuber-based diets, which provide energy and protein (with improper amino acid balance) but are insufficient in critical micronutrients.

Figures 2-5 and Tables 1-4 included at the end of this chapter illustrate how addition of a variety of foods to the basic four diets (white rice- Figure 2, corn tortilla- Figure 3, refined couscous- Figure 4, and potato- Figure 5) can increase the nutrient density of a cereal or tuber-based diet. There is a need for broadening the food base and diversification of diets. Much can be gained from adding reasonable amounts of these foods, which will add micronutrient density to the staple diet (Table 1, 2, 3 and 4).