What is a micronutrient?
Micronutrient is the umbrella term used to represent essential vitamins and minerals required from the diet to sustain virtually all normal cellular and molecular functions.
My initial vision is to use the US consumer market to drive awareness and functionally change the food system towards nutrients. However, the issue of undernourishment is a global issue. Maybe there is some overlap here.
31% of the US is at risk of at least one vitamin deficiency (or anemia from iron). (link) We’ll need another day to define what deficiency actually means. My theory is that this number will grow as we define what humans actually need to thrive. The deficiencies are:
- Vitamins: A, B6, B12, C, D, E and folate
- Minerals: Iron
Globally we’re here (link):
- Iron, iodine, folate, vitamin A, zinc
On both lists we have:
- Iron, folate, and Vitamin A
Perhaps by focusing on these we may be able to accomplish US roll-out and global impact.
Nutrition is the most powerful adaptable environmental exposure to target in order to reduce the burden of diseases and death across the life span around the world.