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Fortifying common foods with vitamins and minerals is unlikely to cause problems and will make the majority of people healthier.

This fortification, usually called vitamin enrichment on product labels, is already very common for many processed foods in many parts of the world and a glance down the shelves of any Zimbabwean supermarket will find scores of examples.

So the programme launched last week by Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa will give to the consumer of basics what the consumer of imported and luxury items already gets.

Many of these breakfast cereals and other foods that are fortified are done so because of a law in some of the countries where they are sold.

Most states in the United States, for example, demand that some basic foods, including wheat and maize flours, are fortified.

And, in another sense, the enrichment is simply putting back what the food processor has taken out, or what becomes unavailable with the cooking techniques frequently used.

Most grains, for example, have their vitamins and minerals in the husk surrounding the starch and this is frequently removed and used for animal feed, while the starch, which is the part most people like to eat, is milled and processed for sale as human food. Fortification puts back those lost micro-nutrients without the stuff that most people do not like to eat.

But even straight-run maize meal cooked in water will not give a full range of nutrients. Central Americans, living where maize was domesticated, used to cook it in an alkali solution or treat it first in such a solution, to ensure that vitamins were released.

When maize seed was taken to Africa, Europe and Asia that piece of knowledge was not transferred.

Studies already done suggest that at least five million Zimbabweans, well over a third of the population, do not get all the nutrients they need and the figure is almost certainly higher. Yet no one in Zimbabwe starves; everyone gets enough food for energy. So the food they eat is missing something.

Some families are fortunate, farming in areas where they can grow a full range of crops and livestock in good soils. Others, in urban areas, earn enough to buy a full range of food, have the time to prepare it properly and in any case are probably buying food that is already enriched.

The rest of the people either have to rely on a more basic diet, or buy more fast food, or cannot be bothered to cook or eat properly.

Fortifying the common foods that Dr Parirenyatwa recommended, all flours and cooking oils for example, will mean that, however, limited a diet, or however, a person skimps on variety or proper cooking, they will get adequate quantities of needed vitamins and minerals, and at no extra cost.

Fortifying foods is almost cost free, especially with modern processing technologies, simply because the quantities required for each tonne of processed food are tiny and because the additives are cheap.

Overdosing is effectively impossible, unless people decide to eat vitamin tablets by the spoonful, so there is no danger in fortifying foods. Doing so simply ensures that ordinary people get at least the same basic quantities of micro-nutrients that a health-food fanatic already gets and at a far lower cost and a lot less bother.

We were happy to note that Zimbabwean millers and food processors are quite happy to implement the programme, as they will have to in any case if they want to export because Zimbabwe is actually slightly behind in this field.

This is one of those public health measures that cost almost nothing, require no changes to lifestyles and yet give quite significant benefits.

We hope implementation is speedy.