Food fortification is an important nutrition intervention to fight micronutrient deficiencies and to reduce their incidence in many low‐ and middle‐income countries. Food fortification approaches experienced a significant rise in the recent years and have generated a lot of criticism. The present review aimed to shed light on the actual effect of food fortification approaches on the reduction of malnutrition. A set of 100 articles and reports, which have dealt with the impact of food fortification on malnutrition, were included in this review. This review identified a broad selection of local raw materials suitable for a food‐to‐food fortification approach.

Micronutrient deficiencies are known to affect many people worldwide. Among the factors contributing to this situation, the poor bioavailability of foods micronutrients is key. This review aims at highlighting the factors affecting minerals bioavailability and their assessment methods. The numeric approach was used during data collection. The results show that the bioavailability of minerals is key to assess the amount that is released for body metabolism. Different factors including inhibitors and promoters affect their bioavailability. There are different methods to assess the digestibility of minerals, which generally involve oral, gastric, and intestinal phases.

Nutritious complementary feeding is often not affordable in Benin, and iron deficiency exists. This research aimed at formulating an affordable and sensory acceptable complementary food supplement using local food ingredients to increase iron intake among children aged 6–59 months in Benin. The complementary food supplement was formulated to ensure that 10 g would cover 25% of the estimated average requirements for iron for children aged 6 to 12 months. Adansonia digitata fruit pulp, Moringa oleifera leaf powder, and Cochlospermum tinctorium root powder were used to compose the complementary food supplement, which was mixed with maize and sorghum ogi porridges before being presented to the mothers and children for the acceptability test. The mineral contents of Adansonia digitata fruit pulp in mg/100 g dw were 9.9 ± 0.1 for iron and 0.9 ± 0.1 for zinc. The iron and zinc contents of Moringa oleifera leaf powder and Cochlospermum tinctorium root powder in mg/100 g dw were 34.1 ± 2.2 and 26.8 ± 2.7 and 9 ± 0.0 and 0.9 ± 0.0, respectively. The complementary food supplement contained, in mg/100 g dw, 17.4 ± 1.1 of iron and 1.2 ± 0.1 of zinc. The maize and sorghum ogi porridges enriched with the complementary food supplement at substitution rates of 15% and 16% (in dry weight), respectively, were acceptable to 85% of children for sorghum ogi porridge and 87% for maize ogi porridge. The present study demonstrated the potential of local food ingredients in the formulation of an iron‐rich and acceptable complementary food supplement for children aged 6–59 months in Benin.

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