You probably know that salt is often fortified with iodine. Quite a lot of other basic foodstuffs, including bread, rice, and pasta, are fortified with folic ac

You probably know that salt is often fortified with iodine. Quite a lot of other basic foodstuffs, including bread, rice, and pasta, are fortified with folic acid, iron, niacin, etc. It's a largely forgotten program of the USDA that has been wildly popular in reducing the incidence of nutritional diseases. I presume that's what you're referring to, because I just looked at the ingredients on the spaghetti boxes of the two most popular brands of pasta in the U.S., Barilla and Mueller's, and they only list wheat--semolina & durham, and durham, respectively. But they're both also fortified, with Mueller including that in the list of ingredients, and Barilla listing them separately as vitamins/minerals. I understand it's de rigour to eat "pure" foods, but it's actually led to reduced intake of important nutrients in the wider population. For example, until very recently iodine wasn't included in prenatal vitamins because for much of the past century most people used fortified salt. But with the increased use of kosher salt in home kitchens, medical advice not to add too much salt when cooking, and the fact that prepackaged foods don't contain iodized salt, iodine intake began to drop in the United States and UK.