INFOODS Publications

Full text links to INFOODS and related documents are provide here. The INFOODS series of publications is also available from UNU's Web Site, on compact disk, and as printed publications. Others are available from FAO Nutrition Web Site.

New Publication!
17 October 2007: The Food composition study guide has been developed to reach a wide audience and disseminate food composition training in an accessible format. This guide is meant as a workbook to accompany Greenfield and Southgate, Food composition data – production, management and use, and may be used for self-study or in conjunction with a food composition course, for evaluation or as a refresher course (NB: the PDF available online is the incomplete draft; it will be updated when the entire publication has been completed).

Food Composition Study Guide
For more information contact: Ruth Charrondiere

Uses and abuses of food composition data
Supplement to Food Australia 42 (8), 1990
H. Greenfield, editor

Quality and Accessibility of Food-Related Data
Edited by Heather Greenfield
Proceedings of the First International Food Data Base Conference

Eurofoods: Towards Compatibility of Nutrient Data Banks in Europe
29/S1/85
Guest Editor: C.E. West, Wageningen
Karger

EUROFOODS - Proceedings of the Second Workshop
Journal Editor Richard D. King

Food Composition Data: Production, Management and Use
H. Greenfield & DAT Southgate, 2nd Edition, FAO Rome, 2003 or download PDF : Part 1 and Part 2

Data on the composition of foods are essential for a diversity of purposes in many fields of activity. Achieving a world wide network of compatible food composition databases is a major task and requires a systematic approach to both the generation and compilation of good quality data. This book was produced as a set of guidelines to aid individuals and organisations involved in the analysis of foods, the compilation of data, data dissemination and data use. Its primary objective is to show how to obtain good quality data that meet the requirements of the many users of food composition databases. These guidelines draw on experience gained in many countries where food composition programmes have been active for many years.

Overall, the structure of these guidelines follows the stages in an idealised programme for creating a comprehensive food composition database: selecting foods and food components for analysis, sampling foods, analytical methods, data compilation and documentation, data uses, and maintenance of quality in every step. This book provides an invaluable guide for professionals in health and agriculture research, policy development, food regulation and safety, food product development, clinical practice, epidemiology, and many other fields of endeavour where food composition data provide a fundamental resource.

Food energy - methods of analysis and conversion factors. FAO FOOD AND NUTRITION PAPER 77. Report of a Technical Workshop, Rome, 3-6 December 2002. Rome, 2003.

This technical workshop was convened to examine - in depth and for the first time - the issue of the energy content of foods and how it relates to energy requirements. The interplay between analytical and physiological advances has made the field of nutrition increasingly rewarding, but also increasingly complex. In the case of the macronutrients that provide energy, there are now a number of different methods of analysis and different energy conversion factors. Each of the energy-providing components of foods is associated with its own variety of analytical methods, each of which may arrive at a slightly or very different value for the actual content of protein, fat, carbohydrate or dietary fibre. Each of the components also has its own energy value (or in some cases, values) - which in the case of “subfractions” may or may not differ from the value generally assigned to the macronutrient itself. This issue is complicated further by the fact that the energy conversion factor chosen is not necessarily tied to the specific analytical method used. The possibility of using any one of several analytical results with any one of several conversion factors results in myriad possibilities for expressing the energy content of individual foods, with consequent effects on estimation of the overall energy content of diets.

Food Composition Data: a Users Perspective. W.M. Rand, C.T. Windham, B.W. Wyse, V.R. Young United Nations University, Tokyo, 1987.

This volume presents the views and experiences of prominent workers in the field concerning the importance of food composition data, current problems, and what must be done to improve the situation. It provides an essential introduction and survey for anyone interested in or expecting to be involved with gathering, compiling, and using food composition data. It emphasizes the ways in which food composition data underpin research and policy in important areas of public health, dietetics, nutrition and epidemiology as well as being critical for the food industry and key decisions made by bilateral and international assistance agencies. It is a useful reference for university courses on food and nutrition.

Compiling Data for Food Composition Data Bases. W.M Rand, J.A.T. Pennington, S.P. Murphy, J.C. Klensin. United Nations University, Tokyo, 1991.

Food composition data have been compiled in many data bases throughout the world. As the uses of these data increase, larger numbers of individuals and organizations become involved in the compilation, and thus the need for guidelines on the gathering, formatting, and documentation increases. This publication describes and presents recommendations for the procedures involved with compiling the values for food composition data bases. Specifically addressed are the five major ways to obtain data on the nutrient content of foods including:

• direct analysis based on analytical measurements,
• calculated as representative values (e.g., weighted means of several samples),
• gathered from other sources (e.g., taken from other tables or the literature),
• estimated from similar foods (e.g., substitution of data),
• estimated from ingredients (e.g., recipe calculations).

Identification of Food Components for INFOODS Data Interchange. J.C. Klensin, D. Feskanich, V. Lin,

A.S. Truswell, D.A.T. Southgate. United Nations University, Tokyo, 1989.

The effective use of food composition data requires the precise identification of the nutrients and other food components actually measured. Common names for food components are often applied to a variety of methods of analysis, or combinations of chemicals that can result in different quantitative values of the same food. This book provides the first comprehensive standardization of food component nomenclature for international nutrient data exchange. It sets out a straightforward set of rules for identifying food components precisely and constructing data bases suitable for transfer between computers.

INFOODS Food Composition Data Interchange Handbook. J.C. Klensin. United Nations University, Tokyo, 1992.

This volume is the fourth in the series that provides information and guidelines about requirements for food composition data. It focuses on the identification of nutrient and non-nutrient components of foods, the computer representation and accurate interchange of food composition data, and on the organization, compilation, and content of food composition tables and bases. It presents the structure and rules for moving data files between countries and regional organizations in a way that preserves all of the available information. The approach also alerts the developer of data bases to potential areas in which ambiguities are likely and special care should be taken. It identifies mechanisms for the improvement of overall data base quality.

Food, Nutrition and Agriculture, vol 12 - Food composition data. J. Albert (Editor), FAO, Rome, 1994.

In this issue of Food, Nutrition and Agriculture, the authors describe the many ways in which the public and private sectors use food composition tables and databases.