Characterization of a plant dietary supplement ('multimistura') capacities, used in Mozambique to fight nutritional insecurity

The use of food dietary supplements, commonly called “multimisturas”, has been adopted, in developing countries, as a strategy to combat micronutrient deficiency in the population.. The goal of this work was to study the composition and nutritional potential of a “multimistura” that was developed and used in a vulnerable community of Nampula, Mozambique to fight micronutrient deficiency in pregnant or lactating women and in children up to 8 years old. The micronutrient composition of the “multimistura” developed with locally available products did not show statistically significant differences when compared to commercial food supplements used in industrialized countries. Taking in account the composition results and the nutritional requirements of each target group, it was observed that the currently recommended daily intake should be, at least, doubled to fulfil the nutritional needs of each of the groups. The exception regards Children in the 1-3 year old group, would be an exception, as the doubling of ingestion would be detrimental since it would exceed the tolerable daily intake of magnesium. This work allowed the suggestion of some procedures aimed at balancing the supplement nutritional composition to leverage adequate levels of household nutritional security in the target community.