The UK’s official food watchdog is backing the mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid to reduce birth defects.
Food experts have postulated that folic acid– a synthetic form of the B vitamin folate, must be an ingredient to bread and that it must be incorporated in it via flour. They are of the view that in this way, it would reduce birth defects such as spina bifida among babies.
Professor Nicholas Wald, a spokesman on folic acid for the Academy of Medical Sciences, said,
It is highly desirable for folic acid to be added to flour. The FSA should recommend it. But that level of increased intake is too low. Why introduce a level of fortification that is below the level of other countries, and reduce the possible health benefits?
Members of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) said that if the desired proposal is put into effect then it would become mandatory on the part of the manufactures to add folic acid in breakfast cereals.
