The Whole Truth

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about one in every 33 babies is born with a birth defect.  The good news is that there are things women can do to help prevent this from happening, and one of these is eating enriched grain products such as white bread, tortillas, pasta, or fortified cereals.

While there is plenty of nutritional advice out there for consumers to eat whole grains – and for good reason, I might add – it’s important to tell the whole story.  The fact is that since 1998, when the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) mandated that enriched grains be fortified with folic acid, the incidence of neural tube defects (NTDs) in the US has dropped 36 percent among both white and Hispanic women.  Enriched grains contain two times as much folic acid as whole grains since whole grain products, with the exception of some breakfast cereals, are not fortified with folic acid.

Furthermore, enriched, fortified grain foods are a primary source of folic acid in people’s diets.  This is particularly important for women of child-bearing age, the majority of which do not take folic acid supplements, since they need to include folic acid in their diets BEFORE they become pregnant -- not after the fact.  The U.S. also has a growing Hispanic population, and adequate consumption of folate-rich foods is critical for this group since statistically, Hispanic women are 1.5 to 3 times more likely to have a baby with an NTD. 

CDC considers the role of fortification of enriched grain products so important that in May 2011, it listed it as one of top 10 public health achievements in the first decade of the 21st century.

With January National Birth Defects Prevention Month, it’s important for women of childbearing age to remember the valuable nutritional contribution enriched wheat foods make to making healthy babies.  Most Americans should strive to include six servings of grains per day, with one-half being the enriched-grain type.