Fortification is a form of technological development manifestation made to improve human nutrition. Fortification is done by adding specific micro substance into a material or product that meets the requirements as a carrier of such micro-substances, so the products have sufficient quantities of nutrients. By the simplicity of fortification concept, government or industries can decide fortification policies easily without further review from the side of efficiency and effectiveness. Today issue that raises fortification matter is the increasing of Vitamin A Deficiency risk or VAD in most infants and lower income people. Pemantauan Status Gizi dan Kesehatan in 1998 - 2002 shows that until 2002 there were about 10 million Indonesian children are at risk of VAD. Nevertheless, at that moment the process of giving vitamin A capsules is done together with program of the National Immunization Week (PIN) so the potential of children VAD can be overcome. Unfortunately in the following years, coverage of vitamin A capsules decreased by 56.63 percent to 71.53 percent for infants and toddlers.
Target of World Health Organization (2010) about the world freedom from AVD and are iodine deficiency (IDD) spur the government, academia, industry and community to compliance with VAD and IDD-free Indonesia. Various measures such as providing vitamin A capsules and application of healthy eating patterns have done consistently until the end of 2010. VAD is an important problem and must be resolved as soon as possible. In Indonesia, there are many options for tackling the problem of VAD. One of the best ways is to empower source of vitamin A commodity that are abundant in this country.
Indonesia is rich with natural products that can support all the body's nutritional needs. Moreover, Indonesia has a very rich source of palm for tackling VAD. Palm oil is rich in beta carotene which a carotene molecule will be converted into 2 vitamin A (retinol) molecules in the body. Solutions to overcome VAD are almost entirely involving palm as the main raw material. There are number of options offered, i.e. looking for fortification carrier of vitamin A, isolated beta-carotene in palm oil and made as new products, adding beta-carotene in vegetable oil, and make products of beta carotene derived from palm oil. Recently, a buzz began to boost the fortification of vitamin A in one of the primary needs product in Indonesia which is Frying oil.
Frying oil from palm fruit is a product from palm that processed with some steps such as degumming, deodorizing, and bleaching. Fortification of vitamin A in frying oil is done to replace the content of vitamin A that actually already exist in the fruit, but degraded during processing. The government policy is fortification of vitamin A to the branded frying oil that are about to start from early 2011. Retailing frying oil (minyak curah) is not required because it is still too difficult to control. However, that policy has not been realized because there are still some debates about the benefits and disadvantages of the policy.
Vitamin A is a very unstable substance, especially in application of heat. Processing of frying oil through the process of degumming, deodorizing, and bleaching will surely reduce vitamin A content of the oil. If fortification carried on frying oil, it can be ensured that the retention of vitamin A will surely be reduced to more than half after the frying process due to frying temperature. Then how is the continuation of fortification to overcome VAD problem?
"There are many roads lead to Rome," that is the comment from Prof.Tien Muchtadi, a Professor in Food Science and Technology Department, Bogor Agricultural University. According to her, the most important is how we can overcome the VAD problem in the most efficient way. Prof. Tien supported with her study experience in New York offered some solution involve the abundance of palm in Indonesia. In conventional oil processing, palm fruit which has high yield of oil and low content of beta carotene blended with palm rich in beta carotene but low in oil. The solution offered by Prof. Tien is the separation of the two kinds of palm so the beta carotene from rich-in-beta-carotene-palm can be extracted. The extract then used as vitamin A capsules, snack products such as jelly, or used as cooking oil for instant noodle or salad dressing.
The best decision to overcome VAD problem will depends not only on government policy, but also from academia and industry that utter their consideration through efficiencies and effectiveness from option offered. If the fortification is only done to branded frying oil, then how about the VAD vulnerable communities from lower income that may have difficult to access the oil? In the end, the response to overcome VAD will required synergetic assessment between government, industry, and society including students to utilize this country source as the solving agent of VAD problem.(abr)
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