Organisation: Food
Standards
Country:
Region: OCEANIAFOODS
Contact: Dr
Judy Cunningham, Senior Nutritionist, Monitoring & Evaluation Program, Food
Standards
In
2002 Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) undertook an analytical
program on the composition of dried soup powders purchased in
In
February 2002 FSANZ convened the 6th meeting of the OCEANIAFOODS
group of the INFOODS program, in
FSANZ
provided input to the review of the
FSANZ
has commenced a project to improve data and metadata recording standards within
our reference database – the Australian Nutrient Data Bank. As part of this
process we are documenting the principles we use in planning and assessing
analytical programs, in naming and describing foods and in compiling data for
publication.
The
major activity of FSANZ in 2003 and 2004 will be the production and release of
a major new food composition publication. This will be the first significant
data release by FSANZ since the 1999 release of AUSNUT, a specialised database
developed from the 1995 Australian National Nutrition Survey.
FSANZ
continues to support and develop the Nutrition Panel Calculator (NPC), a
web-based tool developed to assist the food industry to prepare nutrition
information panels for use on the labels of packaged foods. During 2002 there
were substantial improvements to the programming of this product and to the
supporting database. This database is known as AUSNUT Special Edition and
includes some ingredients specifically relevant to the food industry, such as
food additives.
Organisation: Field
Address:
Country: Federated
State of
Region: OCEANIAFOODS
Contact: Dr Lois Englberger, Honorary Research Advisor,
Lois
Englberger states that at present, I am continuing with my work on the foods
and food cultivars of the four states of the of the
In
September Dr Englberger will be going to
Dr
Englberger has not yet started a new database for Micronesia, although she
is thinking that it would be a good idea
to do that, incorporating items for different cultivars of the traditional
staple food crops for breadfruit, banana, giant swamp taro, pandanus and other
foods which have been analysed for this area and were not located in food
composition tables or other literature, such as false durian 9pangium Edule),
bird’s nest fern (asplenium nidus), yellow fin tuna liver, skipjack tuna liver,
parrotfish liver and skipjack tuna and heart. Her work has focused on analysis
for pro vitamins A carotenoids (beta and alpha carotene), retinol (in the case
of the seafood) and selected minerals, including the micronutrients of zinc,
iron and calcium. Due to limited funding, it was not possible to carry out full
nutrient analyses for any samples
For
other Micronesian foods and food cultivars, Dr Englberger refers to Murai
1958 and Bradbury and Holloway 1988 and
would like to see data from these publications put into the Micronesian Food
Database in the future.
New Zealand food composition database
activities
Organisation: Crop & Food Research
Country: New Zealand
Region: OCEANIAFOODS
Contact: Dr
Database
activities:
The
New Zealand Food Composition Database is jointly owned by the Crop & Food
Research and Ministry of Health. Early this year, the Ministry of Health (MoH)
Commissioned a review/audit of the NZ Food Composition Database, which resulted
in very positive comments on its operation.
During
2002 and early 2003, we were very busy with the development of food composition
data for the NZ Children Nutrition Survey. The development work involved food
analyses and recipe calculation of survey foods.
Another
ongoing project is the development of new database management system for the NZ
food composition database, which is schedule to be operational by mid 2004.
Sixth edition of the concise table was released in early April 2003. The latest version of FOODfiles 2002 was released in March 2003. This version has a complete presentation of 48 nutrients plus density data for than 2650 foods. For additional information and purchase of these products, please visit our website: www.crop.cri.nz.
Organisation: University
of South Pacific
Country: Pacific
Islands
Region: OCEANIAFOODS
Contact: Aisha B. Khan, Secretary,
The
Besides
the focus on improving skills in the analysis of food nutrients and food
contaminants, a major output of the project will be an updated version of the
Pacific Island Food Composition Tables, previously published in 1994. Under the project, data gaps for certain
nutrients are being filled and priority foods missing in the original tables
are being analysed.
A
training course on food proximate analysis was recently held and training on
food data compilation will also be undertaken as part of this project. At the conclusion of the project in 2004 a
regional meeting will be held to disseminate project results and launch the
second edition of the Pacific Island Food Composition Tables.