Claim: Vitamin B12 is an important nutrient.

Food fortification or enrichment is the process of adding micronutrients -LRB- essential trace elements and vitamins -RRB- to food . It may be a purely commercial choice to provide extra nutrients in a food , while other times it is a public health policy which aims to reduce the number of people with dietary deficiencies within a population .   Diets that lack variety can be deficient in certain nutrients . Sometimes the staple foods of a region can lack particular nutrients , due to the soil of the region or because of the inherent inadequacy of the normal diet . Addition of micronutrients to staples and condiments can prevent large-scale deficiency diseases in these cases .   While it is true that both fortification and enrichment refer to the addition of nutrients to food , the true definitions do slightly vary . As defined by the World Health Organization -LRB- WHO -RRB- and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations -LRB- FAO -RRB- , fortification refers to `` the practice of deliberately increasing the content of an essential micronutrient , ie . vitamins and minerals -LRB- including trace elements -RRB- in a food irrespective of whether the nutrients were originally in the food before processing or not , so as to improve the nutritional quality of the food supply and to provide a public health benefit with minimal risk to health '' , whereas enrichment is defined as `` synonymous with fortification and refers to the addition of micronutrients to a food which are lost during processing '' .   Food fortification was identified as the second strategy of four by the WHO and FAO to begin decreasing the incidence of nutrient deficiencies at the global level .   As outlined by the FAO , the most common fortified foods are :  Cereals and cereal based products  Milk and Milk products  Fats and oils  Accessory food items  Tea and other beverages  Infant formulas