With the increasing level of food engineering in China, people’s requirements for food have gradually increased. How to flexibly utilize nutritional fortifier to further enhance food safety and quality and meet people’s increasing demand is the issue that should be focused on.

The application of nutritional fortification in food engineering can enhance the nutritional value of food. However, nutrient fortification has certain specificity and must be used reasonably, such as using different types of nutrient fortification in different food projects, to enhance the nutritional value of food and enrich the nutrient content of food while ensuring food safety in accordance with the requirements.

Staff need to clarify the specific nutritional needs of the food project, and clarify the use of nutrient fortification agent type, and then according to the corresponding use of standards, norms and requirements, the scientific addition of nutrient fortification, coordination of calcium, iron, zinc, selenium balance of elements within the food, to improve the nutritional structure of the food, so as to enhance the nutritional value of the food.

Nutritional fortifier in food engineering
Application Principle

Nutritional fortifier refers to a natural/synthetic food additive that can increase the nutrient content and is added to food. In traditional food engineering, the nutritional elements of various foods are not balanced, especially in the process of food processing and cooking, the nutritional elements are easy to be lost, and the reasonable use of nutrient fortification in food can effectively ensure the diversity of nutritional elements and enhance the nutritional value of food.

Common nutrient fortification agents in food engineering include amino acid additives, vitamin additives, mineral additives and trace element additives. The application of nutritional fortification in food engineering can not only effectively improve the nutritional quality of food, but also improve the sensory quality of food, enhance the food preservation performance, and provide people with more convenience.

The theoretical basis of food nutritional fortification is nutrient balance, and the indiscriminate use of nutrient fortification not only can not play a role in increasing nutrition, but also cause nutritional disorders in food, which can damage people’s health.

Generally speaking, in order to ensure the nutritional balance of food and avoid the inappropriate use of nutrient fortification, the dosage of different nutrients will be set reasonably when adding nutrient fortification, so as to comprehensively meet people’s nutritional needs for food. Take natural grain food as an example, most of the grain lacks vitamin C, refined rice and wheat flour lacks vitamin B1, the relevant personnel can be based on the specific type of grain and its natural nutrients, to determine the type of nutritional deficiencies within the type of nutrient fortification and scientific settings of the type of nutrient fortifiers and dosage, to complete the strengthening of the food, to enhance the nutritional balance of the food.

Basic principles and scope of applying nutritional fortifier in food engineering
Basic principles and scope

1. Basic principles
In food engineering, in order to supplement the nutrients in food and optimize and adjust the nutritional structure, nutritional fortifier can be used reasonably with reference to the requirements of relevant standards and principles, so as to ensure the scientificity and reliability of the application of nutritional fortifier.

(1) Adequacy principle. Before selecting a certain nutrient fortifier, the staff must consider other sources of dietary nutrients according to the specific conditions of the food project, to ensure that the level of nutrients in the food will not exceed the standard requirements after the intake of the fortifier, and to determine the necessity of adding this kind of nutrient fortifier. In this way, the level of such nutrients in the food can be increased in a safe manner.

(2) Principle of balance. The application of nutritional fortification should take into account the balance between the nutrients in the food, avoiding the negative impact on the metabolism of other nutrients in the food after adding a certain essential nutrient, and avoiding the imbalance of the nutritional elements in the food due to the use of nutritional fortification.

(3) Principle of high quality. In the application of nutritional fortification, nutritional fortification agents with biological activity and high stability should be selected as far as possible. For example, for iron fortification, the nutritional potency of iron in different forms of fortification is different; vitamin A, ascorbic acid and other components of the main nutrient fortification is very susceptible to the effects of light and heat, resulting in the failure of nutrients in the nutrient fortification.

Therefore, in the use of such nutrient fortifiers, should consider whether there are light and overheating processing links in the food engineering, and if there are, then as far as possible to choose a better thermal stability of the nutrient fortifier, to ensure that the food is still able to maintain a higher level of nutrients after heat treatment.

(4) Absorption-oriented principle. The purpose of using nutritional fortifier in food engineering is to meet people’s demand for food nutrition. Therefore, we should choose the nutrient fortifier that can be easily absorbed by human body as far as possible, and avoid the use of hard-to-solve and hard-to-absorb fortifier. At the same time, consideration should be given to whether the nutrients in the fortifier interact with the components of the food itself.

2.Scope of application
The Hygienic Standard for the Use of Nutritional Fortifiers in Food (GB 14880-2012) has clearly stipulated the hygiene and safety standard of nutritional fortifiers, and all nutritional fortifiers used in food engineering must comply with the requirements of the industry, safety standards, and be indicated on the food package, stating the dosage of nutrient fortifiers, the ingredients used, and other key information.

When applying nutrient fortification in food engineering, nutrient fortification agents that meet the prescribed scope should be selected in accordance with the regulations of the food hygiene supervision department. If nutritional ingredients not listed in the standard of nutritional fortification are used, they should be submitted to the health supervision department for examination, and after passing the examination, the ingredients of nutritional fortification should be checked and a comprehensive evaluation should be conducted to make sure that the nutritional fortification complies with the relevant requirements before it can be applied.

Nutritional Fortification in Food Engineering
Application Suggestions

3.1 Flexible application of fortifier to meet diversified needs
According to the above analysis, food nutritional fortifier has a strong nutritional increase and coordination effect. Nutritional fortification with different nutrients as main components is of great significance for food.

Therefore, in food engineering, it is recommended to flexibly use a variety of different nutrient components of the fortification agent, the nutritional structure of the food to coordinate, and further meet the diversified nutritional needs of food.

Calcium, iron and vitamins are the nutrient components of common nutritional fortifiers. Analyzing the dietary structure of China’s residents, it is found that plant foods are the main foods, such as rice, sorghum, wheat, etc. The calcium content of such foods is relatively small, and most of them have a dysfunctional calcium-phosphorus ratio and a high content of phytic acid. Long-term consumption of plant foods is likely to cause calcium-phosphorus ratio imbalance in the body, and is not conducive to the absorption of calcium, and a single dietary structure is difficult to meet the demand for calcium.

Nutritional fortification of plant foods by utilizing nutritional fortification agents with calcium as the main nutrient component can enhance the calcium content of the food and increase the intake of calcium by the human body. Common calcium-based nutrient fortifiers used in the fortification process of food engineering include calcium lactate, calcium carbonate, calcium gluconate, bone meal, eggshell meal, and so on.

Analyzing the national nutritional intake, it is found that the diet of most of the regional residents lacks iodine intake, and the lack of iodine will lead to backward brain development. Therefore, in China’s food engineering, iodine is added to salt and other seasonings and fortified to form potassium iodide and highly iodized table salt as a way of supplementing the iodine element needed by the human body. In addition, iron and vitamins are added into food as nutritional fortifiers, and the nutritional composition of different foods is coordinated through food fortification treatment to enhance the nutritional value of food.

3.2 Reasonable use of nutritional enhancers according to the target situation
In food engineering, the relevant personnel need to use the fortifier reasonably according to the actual situation of food engineering. According to the actual situation of the fortification link of food engineering, the fortification target can be divided into nutritional fortification of food raw materials and nutritional fortification of by-products, and the staff can use the corresponding nutritional fortification agent according to the specific target and control the composition and measurement of the fortification agent.

① Take the nutritional fortification of raw materials as an example, nutritional fortification of rice, need to consider the existence of calcium deficiency in rice, phytic acid is more, so it can be sprayed on the surface of the fortifier, after drying processed for market supply; can also be rice raw materials crushed, according to the national nutritional fortification regulations and rice flour mixed and then processed into the shape of rice.

Nutritional fortification of wheat, corn and other food ingredients, you can use physical spraying and other ways to add calcium, iron and B vitamins and other components of the nutrient-fortified agent to improve its nutritional structure; can also be used in a mixed way with additives in corn and wheat to increase the lysine, methionine, and promote plant-based food ingredients and proteins complement each other, enriching the nutritional value of food.

Taking the fortification of non-staple foods as an example, the scope of using fortification agents in the production and processing of non-staple foods includes beverages, desserts and seasonings. For example, cookies, cakes, milk tea and other non-staple food processing, you can add dessert nutrients to strengthen; in the processing of fruit and vegetable juice drinks, you can add natural nutrients (vitamin C, probiotics, minerals, etc.) to enrich the nutritional value of fruit and vegetable juice drinks.

In general, the staff need to judge the type of nutrient enhancers according to the actual situation of the use of the object, and then further subdivided into the nutritional deficiencies of the object of enhancement, nutritional enhancement direction, so as to rationally use the nutrient enhancers.

3.3 Dynamic adsorption technology to enhance the effect of fortifier
The dynamic adsorption technology of food fortifier premix is an effective method of preparing fortifier premix. The scientific use of dynamic adsorption technology can further enrich the nutrient composition of the nutrient fortifier, enhance the stability of the nutrient elements in the nutrient fortifier, prompting it to better act on the food, fully meet the needs of the food project, and obtain good application results.

For example, the staff can put ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, manganese sulfate and other materials in the dosing tank, add deionized water (20 ℃), so that it becomes 6000 mL of saturated aqueous solution, and use citric acid to adjust the pH value of the solution to 5.

Subsequently, 3000 g of microporous starch were loaded into three glass columns connected in series by a pressure-resistant tube, and a nitrogen gas device was connected by a pressure-resistant connection to prepare a saturated solution of the nutrient fortifier. By using the microporous starch as the adsorption carrier, the combination of dynamic adsorption and adhesion, the formation of a more stable premix, to enhance the application effect of the fortifier.

3.4 Biofortification technology to improve the nutritional level of food raw materials
Biofortification technology refers to the use of different means to enhance the nutritional enrichment capacity of biological growth process, improve the nutrient composition and nutritional level of the crop itself, to meet the human body’s demand for trace elements and nutrition. The application of nutrient fortification from crop breeding and planting can not only give full play to the safety of biofortification technology, but also improve the nutritional level of food in China from an overall perspective.

It is recommended that the relevant departments and R&D personnel focus on the research of biofortification technology using nutrient-fortified agent technology, to obtain nutrient-fortified crop varieties, or research and development from the planting process to strengthen crop nutrition, replace the original planting varieties, and promote on a large scale, so that people can obtain natural nutrients from their daily diets to achieve nutritional improvement.

This technology requires increased investment in the early breeding and planting, and then can be invested in planting without additional expenditure, which is safer and more efficient than simply adding nutrient fortifiers to the processing of finished crops, and can obtain more economic and social benefits.

When researching, developing and popularizing biofortification technology for crop fortification, the use of nutritional fortifiers should be targeted according to the actual situation of the country and region, and the corresponding fortification level should be set. Drawing on the experience of previous food fortification standards, in addition to stipulating the amount of nutrient fortification for most food products, it is also necessary to formulate nutritional fortification regulations for different target groups, such as the elderly, young people, adolescents and so on.

Conclusion

To summarize, the use of nutritional fortification must comply with the standard requirements to ensure food safety and meet people’s requirements for food. The use of nutritional fortification in food engineering is mainly divided into two basic forms, one is targeted supplementation of nutrients for different types of food, and the other is the simultaneous addition of different nutrient fortification agents in a certain type of food to supplement a variety of nutrients.

In the actual implementation process, it is necessary to clarify the demand first according to the specific situation of food engineering, and then use the nutritional fortifier according to the need, so as to give full play to the application value of nutritional fortifier. In the future, the use of nutritional fortification in food engineering should not only clarify the use of demand, but also need to follow the basic principles of rational use of nutritional fortification, but also the appropriate use of auxiliary technology, such as dynamic adsorption technology, to further strengthen the use of nutritional fortification effect, to adjust the nutritional structure of the food, and to take into account the nutritional balance and food safety.