Optimized fortification

A set of alternative %DV for RTE cereal was developed that considered several sources of information including: (i) current labelled %DV; (ii) NLR changes to the DV; (iii) recommendations within the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (e.g. nutrients of public health concern); and (iv) current nutrient intakes. In some cases, we tested the impact of several different fortified levels of nutrients before selecting the ‘optimized’ value (data not shown). We considered a fortification level for a nutrient ‘optimized’ if it decreased the percentage of the population above the UL or the percentage of the population below the EAR for under-consumed nutrients by a meaningful amount (i.e. 5 percentage points (pp)). Here we are showing one set of alternative fortification levels that represent the balance between decreasing the percentage of the population below the EAR and above the UL. Fortification levels of nutrients were adjusted according to the levels in Table ​Table1:1: we lowered the %DV for B-vitamins, Fe and Zn and the %DV remained the same for vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D and Ca. We accounted for the changes in RACC and DV under NLR when calculating the amount per 100 g of RTE cereal. We only modelled a decrease in nutrient content per 100 g RTE cereal: for the RTE cereal FNDDS food codes that either contained no fortification or fortification levels lower than those in our optimized scenario, we did not increase the amount of nutrient. By only modelling a decrease in fortification, we estimated the impact of fortification changes among those RTE cereals that currently fortify at typical levels (Table ​(Table1)1) while excluding those cereals that either do not currently fortify (such as organic RTE cereals) or fortify at levels below most RTE cereals.