Fortifying Foods - Better Living Through Chemistry?

Call me weird, but I enjoy shopping for orange juice. I can get fresh-squeezed juice. Sometimes I'll go for the juice fortified with vitamins C & E plus zinc. I detest the calcium-enriched juice, which taste to me like orange-flavored chalk. I can pick a juice to suit my tastes and the health interests of myself and my family. If someone asks me what the ingredients for my juice are, it's possible I can simply state, 'juice from oranges'. Of course, the same can't be said of many of the foods we eat. Unless you get it straight from the cow, milk is fortified. Similarly, all grain products are fortified.

The purpose of fortification is to address perceived nutritional deficiencies in the population as a whole. Mandatory fortification of corn and grain products was introduced in 1942. At the time, the introduction of niacin into the these foods coincided with a drastic reduction in the number of cases of pellagra (a disease associated with niacin deficiency) in the United States. However, it's important to remember that the epidemiological studies can't provide a complete picture of the effects of fortification. First, it's very difficult to draw valid cause/effect conclusions. Second, by its very nature, epidemiology and other statistical disciplines look at the effects of an action on a population and not at the effects on individuals.

Is increased fortification a bad thing? Personally, I think it is. It goes with my philosophy that it's ethically wrong to force a medication on people. Aside from that, I think that some of the health consequences of fortification can be negative. First, dosage can't be controlled. Some people will get far more of a fortified ingredient than they really need (even if the US RDA is a healthy value, which may be questionable). Second, fortifying a food with a nutrient may cause you to avoid other foods which contain that nutrient. Got all your vitamin A from a multi-vitamin? You may not want to eat carrots, even though they contain many more healthful substances than the vitamin. Why? Because too much vitamin A can be harmful and your physiology, on some level, responds to the potential threat. Janet Raloff has an interesting Science News Online article concerning the proposed increased fortification of cereal grains. Her article looks at food enrichment more from the perspective of its cost effectiveness, but just reading it gave me pause. If we have to force a substance on the population, why not just offer free prescriptions for multi-vitamins? Oh, that's right... because of some fear that people will sell their vitamins for a profit. Sigh... I'm a person not a population. You are too.
BHA & BHT | Opposed to Fluoridation