KFI Published a Journal Article Titled: Contribution of Packaged Palm Cooking Oil Consumption to Vitamin A Intake

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On September 30, 2024, KFI published an article in the Journal of Nutrition and Dietetics titled Contribution of Packaged Palm Cooking Oil Consumption to Vitamin A Intake. The article was based on the issue of vitamin A deficiency, which is a serious problem that affects the growth of children. In addition to high-dose vitamin A supplementation, the government also made an effort by launching a mandatory fortification program of palm cooking oil with vitamin A. However, the implementation only applies to packaged palm cooking oil, while 85% of the Indonesian population consumes bulk cooking oil and only 14.99% of the population consumes packaged cooking oil. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct an evaluation to assess the accuracy of this program in targeting the community. 

This study aims to determine the contribution of fortified palm cooking oil consumption in meeting people's vitamin A intake. The results of this study showed that 59.07% of the Indonesian population is at risk of vitamin A deficiency with the largest proportion in the group of pregnant women who are almost 70% insufficient in vitamin A intake. Consumption of fortified palm cooking oil is considered to increase the adequacy of vitamin A intake. If the consumption of 100% fortified palm cooking oil is in accordance with SNI (Vitamin A 40 IU at the producer level which is likely to decrease to 25 IU when consumed), the level of vitamin A adequacy has the potential to increase. Vitamin A adequacy levels were found to increase by comparing actual consumption to the RDA of 16-18 year old males from 69% to 86.14%. Meanwhile, the level of vitamin A sufficiency when compared to the RDA for pregnant women in trimester 2 increased from 53.67% to 67.00%. Thus, palm cooking oil if fully fortified followed by food diversification can increase the vitamin A intake of the population, especially in age groups with needs below this RDA group.

With the potential for optimized vitamin A sufficiency, the lower middle-income population unfortunately still generally uses unfortified bulk oil and only 10% of total consumption is packaged palm cooking oil. Thus, this article is expected to be a study material to encourage regulations that require fortification of all palm cooking oil through mandatory packaging of palm cooking oil, while also promoting food diversification.

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