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Compliance of Maize Flour Brands in Nairobi County to Food Fortification Standards and Minerals Bioaccessibility in Ugali Made from Fortified Maize Flour

Daniel Mwangi

Micronutrient deficiencies remain a public health challenge in Kenya with high deficiencies in iron and zinc. Food fortification is one of the interventions used to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies. However, the bio accessibility of the micronutrients in fortified foods is key in determining the success of the intervention. The objective of this work was to determine compliance of commercially milled maize flour brands in Nairobi County to national fortification standards and bio accessibility of minerals from fortified maize flour. Ninety six maize flour samples were randomly collected from Nairobi County and sorted to remove duplicate samples yielding 52 analytical samples. The samples were analyzed for zinc and iron content using atomic absorption spectroscopy, while vitamins were determined using high performance liquid chromatography. Samples are considered compliant if they meet the national standards in any two of the three indicator micronutrients (Iron, Zinc and Vitamin A). An in vitro digestion protocol was used to determine mineral bio accessibility. From the analysis, 26.9%, 57.7% and 26.9% of the samples complied with fortification standards for zinc, iron and vitamin A, respectively. The compliance levels for the B vitamins ranged from 34.5% to 100%. The bio accessibility for iron ranged from 45.1% to 52.2% while that for zinc ranged from 12.8% to 22.3%. There was significant difference in bio accessibility based on the mineral type (p<0.0001). Ascorbic acid levels didn’t have any effect on the bio accessibility of either mineral (p=0.5794) and neither was there any interaction between the type of mineral nor the ascorbic acid levels (p=0.8333). Compliance to the national food fortification standards is low despite efforts by both government and private sector players. The bio accessibility of iron was higher than of zinc 2 folds-3 folds. The addition of ascorbic acid had no significant effect on the minerals bio accessibility.