Sarkari Naukri

14 September 2021 Current Affairs:To commemorate the ongoing 4th Rashtriya Poshan Mah, the Food and Public Distribution Department of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and the Ministry of Women and Child Development together organized a webinar on rice fortification.

Rice fortification:
♦ Biofortification is the method through which the nutritional value of food crops is improved by a variety of strategies which includes plant breeding, agronomic practices and modern-day biotechnological techniques. Read extra about biofortification in the link.
♦ The Food Safety and Standards Agency of India (FSSAI) defines fortification as “intentionally increasing the content of essential micronutrients in foods to improve the nutritional quality of foods and provide public health benefits with minimal health risks”.
♦ In rice fortification, micronutrients are introduced to everyday rice keeping in mind the dietary requirements.
♦ The cooking of fortified rice does not require any exclusive procedure. After cooking, fortified rice retains the equal physical properties and micronutrient levels as it had before cooking.
♦ Various technologies are accessible for rice fortification, such as coating and dusting. For rice fortification in India, ‘extrusion’ is viewed to be an excellent technology.
♦ This involves using an extruder to produce fortified rice kernels (FRK) from the mixture. . The fortified rice kernels are then blended with everyday rice to produce fortified rice. FRK has a shelf existence of at least 12 months.