► FAO/INFOODS food composition database for biodiversity with solely analytical data. ► Contains 451 components for over 6411 food entries. ► Aims to increase biodiversity in food composition ...databases. ► Helps to improve evaluation of nutrient intakes and adequacy. ► Contributes to better nutrition, health and sustainability of diets.
Nutrient content can vary as much between different varieties of the same foods, as they do among different foods. Knowledge of varietal differences can therefore mean the difference between nutrient adequacy and inadequacy. The FAO/INFOODS food composition database for biodiversity has been developed with analytical data for foods described at the level of variety, cultivar and breed, and for underutilized and wild foods. It contains 6411 food entries and values for 451 components together with the bibliographic references and other information. The database is in MS Excel format and can be downloaded free-of-charge from the INFOODS website http://www.fao.org/infoods/biodiversity/index_en.stm. It is intended to annually publish new editions, making these data available for national and regional food composition databases. This database could be used to raise the awareness, promote and investigate food biodiversity and help to better estimate nutrient intakes.
Previous systematic reviews, which focused on sugar intake and its relation with health issues, were mainly conducted in Western countries, not Asian countries characterized by differences in dietary ...habits and disease prevalence. The scarcity of Asian studies may be attributed to the lack of assessment tools for estimating sugar intake. To provide an overview of the epidemiological studies on sugar intake in Asian countries, with a primary focus on dietary assessment methodology for estimating sugar intake, we conducted a scoping review of the epidemiological studies estimating sugar intake in Asian countries (the United Nations' definition) and Taiwan using PubMed and Web of Science. Study quality was evaluated based on its assessment of sugar intake in the whole diet, dietary assessment methods, and data sources used for estimating sugar content. We identified 143 studies from 136 publications from Eastern (n = 63), Southern (n = 30), South-Eastern (n = 26), and Western (n = 24) Asia. Total sugars were investigated in 95 studies, while 23–30 studies investigated sucrose, fructose, added sugars, and free sugars. The main aim of the selected studies was assessment of diet–disease relations (n = 85) and estimation of dietary intake (n = 40), and 62 studies assessed sugars as the primary exposure/outcome. A total of 120 studies assessed sugar intake in the whole diet, and 62 studies used validated FFQs or multiple-day dietary assessment methods. Only 41 studies used country-specific comprehensive food-composition databases or directly measured sugar content. Only 17 studies reported high-quality data. This review elucidated a sufficient number of epidemiological studies estimating sugar intake across Asian countries; however, most studies reported low-quality data. The results from our review showed that both feasible and validated dietary assessment methods, as well as comprehensive country-specific sugar-composition databases, are essential for producing high-quality studies with accurate sugar intake to examine its association with health outcomes.
Statement of Significance: This scoping review provides a comprehensive overview of the epidemiological studies on intake of sugars in Asian countries and suggests the necessity of feasible and validated dietary assessment methods and comprehensive country-specific sugar-composition databases in individual Asian countries.
Ultra-processed foods' (UPFs') consumption has been positively linked to the presence of allergic symptoms, but it is yet unknown whether this is linked to their nutritional composition or allergen ...load. This study used the ingredient lists available in the Greek Branded Food Composition Database, HelTH, to classify foods (
4587) into four grades of food processing (NOVA1-4) according to the NOVA System. Associations between NOVA grades and the presence of allergens (as an ingredient or trace) were studied. Overall, UPFs (NOVA4) were more likely to contain allergens than unprocessed foods, NOVA1 (76.1% vs. 58.0%). However, nested analyses among similar foods showed that in >90% of cases, processing degree was not linked to allergens' presence. Recipe/matrix complexity was more strongly linked to allergens' presence with NOVA4 foods declaring 1.3 allergenic ingredients vs. 0.4 allergenic ingredients in NOVA1 foods (
< 0.01). Exposure to trace allergens was more common for NOVA4 than NOVA1 foods (45.4% vs. 28.7%), but the extent of contamination was similar (2.3 vs. 2.8 trace allergens). Overall, UPFs are more complex mixtures with higher numbers of allergens per food and are more prone to cross-contamination. However, indicating a food's degree of processing is not sufficient to help identify allergen-free choices within the same subcategory.
•NZFCDB is the main source of data for estimating nutrient intake in the NZ nutrition surveys.•NZFCDB includes data for a wide range of foods commonly consumed in NZ.•∼600 foods (each with up to 87 ...core components) were included in NZFCDB in 2012–15.•NZFCDB-associated products are available on website: www.foodcomposition.co.nz.
A country-specific food composition databases is useful for assessing nutrient intake reliably in national nutrition surveys, research studies and clinical practice. The New Zealand Food Composition Database (NZFCDB) programme seeks to maintain relevant and up-to-date food records that reflect the composition of foods commonly consumed in New Zealand following Food Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations/International Network of Food Data Systems (FAO/INFOODS) guidelines. Food composition data (FCD) of up to 87 core components for approximately 600 foods have been added to NZFCDB since 2010. These foods include those identified as providing key nutrients in a 2008/09 New Zealand Adult Nutrition Survey. Nutrient data obtained by analysis of composite samples or are calculated from analytical data. Currently >2500 foods in 22 food groups are freely available in various NZFCDB output products on the website: www.foodcomposition.co.nz. NZFCDB is the main source of FCD for estimating nutrient intake in New Zealand nutrition surveys.
Comprehensively compiled dietary polyphenol data is required to compare polyphenol content between foods, calculate polyphenol intake and study its association with health and disease. The purpose of ...this review was to identify data on the presence and content of polyphenolic components in South African foods, with the aim of compiling the data into a database. An electronic literature search was conducted up until January 2020 using multiple databases. Additional literature was sourced from South African university repositories. A total of 7051 potentially eligible references were identified, of which 384 met the inclusion criteria. These studies provided information on food item name, geographical distribution, polyphenol type, quantity, and quantification method. Data for 1070 foods were identified, amounting to 4994 polyphenols. Spectrophotometry was the main method used for quantification of gross phenolic content in various assays such as total phenolic content (Folin-Ciocalteu assay), total flavonoid content (AlCl
assay) and condensed tannin content (vanillin-HCl assay). Phenolic acids and flavonoids were the main polyphenol classes identified. This review highlights that South Africa has abundant information on the polyphenol content of foods, which could be utilised within a food composition database for the estimation of polyphenol intake for South Africa.
Food composition databases (FCDBs) are important tools that provide information on the nutritional content of foods. Previously, it was largely unclear what nutritional contents and which FCDBs were ...involved in highly cited papers. The bibliometric study aimed to identify the most productive authors, institutions, and journals. The chemicals/chemical compounds with high averaged citations and FCDBs used by highly cited papers were identified. In July 2023, the online database Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) was queried to identify papers related to FCDBs. A total of 803 papers were identified and analyzed. The first paper indexed in WoSCC was published in 1992 by Pennington, which described the usefulness of FCDB for researchers to identify core foods for their own studies. In that paper, the FCDB described was the USDA 1987–88 NFCS (the United States Department of Agriculture 1987–88 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey). The most productive author was Dr. Paul M. Finglas, the Head of the Food Databanks National Capability at the Quadram Institute (Norwich, UK) and the Managing Director of EuroFIR. His most cited paper among this dataset was about the development of an online Irish food composition database together with EuroFIR. The most productive institutions were the USDA and the World Health Organization (WHO) instead of universities. Flavonoid was the most recurring chemical class among the highly cited ones. The anti-oxidative properties and protective effects against heart disease and cancer of flavonoids might be some of the reasons for their popularity in research. Among the highly cited papers, the most heavily used FCDBs were the USDA database for the flavonoid content of selected foods, Fineli, the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (USNDB), EuroFIR eBASIS-Bioactive Substances in Food Information Systems, and Phenol-Explorer. High-quality national and international FCDBs should be promoted and made more accessible to the research and public communities to promote better nutrition and public health on a global scale.
Understanding the population's dietary patterns and their impacts on health requires many different sources of information. The development of reliable food composition databases is a key step in ...this pursuit. With them, nutrition and health care professionals can provide better public health advice and guide society toward achieving a better and healthier life. Unfortunately, these databases are full of caveats. Focusing on the specific case of vegetable oils, we analyzed the possible obsolescence of the information and the differences or inconsistencies among databases. We show that in many cases, the information is limited, incompletely documented, old or unreliable. More importantly, despite the many efforts carried out in the last decades, there is still much work to be done. As such, institutions should develop long-standing programs that can ensure the quality of the information on what we eat in the long term. In the face of climate change and complex societal challenges in an interconnected world, the full diversity of the food system needs to be recognized and more efforts should be put toward achieving a data-driven food system.
The tocopherol and tocotrienol (i.e. tocol) and plant sterol contents of 14 vegetable and 9 industrial fats and oils available on the Finnish market in 2005 were determined using NP-HPLC with ...fluorescence detection (tocols) and GC-FID (plant sterols). Best sources of
α-tocopherol were wheat germ (192
mg/100
g) and sunflower oil (59
mg/100
g). Oils richest in
γ-tocopherol were camelina (72
mg/100
g), linseed (52
mg/100
g) and organic rapeseed oil (51
mg/100
g). Total tocol contents were between 4.2
mg/100
g (coconut fat) and 268
mg/100
g (wheat germ oil). Plant sterol contents ranged from 69
mg/100
g in a frying fat to 4240
mg/100
g in wheat germ oil. Organic rapeseed oil, the second best source of plant sterols, contained 887
mg/100
g. The variations of the total tocol and sterol contents in 10 rapeseed oil sub-samples analysed separately were 9.7% for tocols and 9.9% for sterols in refined rapeseed oil, and 6.3% for tocols and 4.2% for sterols, respectively, in cold-pressed rapeseed oil. In addition to the target compounds, plastochromanol-8 could be determined in all plant-based samples with contents ranging from 0.13 (walnut oil) to 18
mg/100
g (linseed oil). The lignans sesamin and sesamolin could be identified in sesame oil.
Recommendations to reduce intake of free sugars are included in some national dietary guidelines. However, as the content of free sugars is absent from most of the food composition tables, the ...adherence to such recommendations is hard to monitor. We developed a novel method to estimate the free sugar content in the Philippines food composition table, based on a data-driven algorithm that enabled automated annotation. We then used these estimates to analyze the free sugar intake of 66,016 Filipinos aged 4 years and over. The average free sugar consumption was 19 g/day, accounting for an average of 3% of the total caloric intake. Snacks and breakfast were the meals with the highest content of free sugars. Intake of free sugars, in grams per day and as % of energy, was positively associated with wealth status. The same pattern was observed for the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.
•A database was developed for total, soluble and insoluble fibre data.•Fibre data was collected from a variety of sources, introducing limitations.•In total, 2624 foods were included in the ...database.•The database will allow analysis of soluble and insoluble dietary fibre intake.
Foods rich in dietary fibre have long been consumed for their known health benefits. Fibre represents a complex group of substances, with diverse physicochemical properties and therefore varied physiological effects. To be able to fully understand the clinical benefit of consuming dietary fibre, it is important to look at the components and their physiological roles. Evidence suggests that soluble fibres contribute to health effects such as blood glucose attenuation and cholesterol lowering, while insoluble fibres play a role in health effects such as laxation. Most countries have a food composition database that includes dietary fibre, however further details on categories of fibre are not included. This lack of information is problematic for research, for example dietary effects may be attributed to total fibre, rather than the type of fibre. A Fibre Categories Database (FCD) was developed to include data on total, soluble and insoluble fibre from a range of common foods. Fibre data was collected from a variety of sources including the scientific literature, food industry and national databases and calculations from recipe files were used. The creation of the Fibre Categories Database provides a useful tool to analyse the intake of types of fibre and relate this to health outcomes in the context of a whole diet.
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