Maize meal lacks nutrients: National Consumer Forum

Some brands of maize meal do not contain the level of nutrients required by law, the National Consumer Forum (NCF) says.

This was despite a decade-long effort by government to get certain staple foods fortified with vitamins and other micro-nutrients as a way of

fighting malnutrition.

"This nation-wide fortification initiative was meant to address our unacceptably high levels of malnutrition, especially among children," said NCF chairman Thami Bolani in a statement.

"But clearly the implementation and enforcement strategies are not up to standard."

The forum sent sample maize meal products from supermarket shelves for laboratory testing and found that both the brands it tested fell short of the legal requirements.

"We tested for seven of the main micronutrients listed in the regulations and found that there were insufficient amounts of most of these in the products we tested," said Bolani.

These included vitamin A, riboflavin, iron and niacinamide.

Bolani said these results were disappointing since government had been working with the industry for over a decade to ensure achievable levels of fortification in staple foods.

The Development Bank of Southern Africa reported in 2008 that child malnutrition rates had deteriorated, with one out of five children in South Africa having stunted growth because of not having enough nutrition.

It found that almost a third of women and children were anaemic, and almost half of all children had too little zinc.