Adding folic acid to bread flour could prevent countless family tragedies | Tania Browne

Every week in England and Wales three babies are born with spina bifida and 13 pregnancies are terminated when a neural tube defect is discovered. Around two thirds of these events could be avoided by adding folic acid to flour Adding stuff to food is by no means a new idea. We shudder when we hear stories of the Victorians adding boracic acid to milk so it would keep longer, or unscrupulous bakers adding chalk and alum to their loaves to bulk them out and make them look whiter. These additives were intended to add a little convenience for the modern Victorian home and boost profits for the seller, respectively. Never mind that they might also have increased the already desperate child mortality rate.But it was soon recognised that adding micronutrients to food might be a good thing. In the early 20th century Michigan became the first state in the US to introduce a public health campaign for adding dietary iodine to salt, and as a result cases of goitre dropped dramatically. The adding of synthetic vitamin D to milk in the 1920s helped to reduce cases of rickets, and in 1956 the UK introduced a law for all flour to be fortified with a minimum amount of calcium, iron, thiamin and nicotinic acid. Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Nutrition Health Science Bread Life and style Society Medical research Source Type: news