Journal of Nutrition Research
An official journal of IAPEN India association

Abstract

Micronutrient deficiencies are aptly called as hidden hunger as they do not cause any immediate disorder symptoms but do cause serious health issues eventually. The situation of malnourishment is grim as it involves significant numbers of people especially women and children from various parts of the world. Micronutrient deficiency is usually due to the lack of a balanced diet and awareness on nutritional requirements. Another lesser known culprit is natural antinutritional factors present in plant based foods which reduce the bioavailablility of micronutrients causing deficiencies. This problem can easily be overcome by countermeasures like food fortification with micronutrients or by adopting suitable food processing methods like soaking, steeping, germination, cooking or fermentation. Biotechnology can also come handy here in the form of developing food crops with reduced antinutritional factors thereby enhancing micronutrient availability. Thus developing well researched & tailored micronutrient malnutrition management strategies & their effective implementation is a need of the hour.

Key words: Micronutrients, Antinutritional factors, Hidden hunger, Malnutrition, Micronutrient malnutrition