Food composition data have a variety of end uses ranging from labelling of single foods to individual food intakes to national dietary surveys. Micronutrients may be critical indicators of nutritional status when individual or national daily intake data are considered but the most used data are those of macronutrients. Sources of error for the end user are myriad and increasingly well described. A recent study measured the variances involved in estimating the composition of foods/recipes not listed on a food composition database. A group of expert users showed significant differences in estimates of protein and micronutrients but not energy fat and carbohydrate when the same food records were analysed using the same database.
This investigation illustrates a related difficultyFhigh turnover rates of manufactured foods and consequences for end users. The Manufactured Food Database contains about 5000 manufactured foods and has a 30-50% annual turnover. The manufacturer reported macronutrient data on this database offer an additional resource to end users in the setting of a dynamic food supply. The impact of voluntary fortification is another confounding factor for end users with traditional food composition databases and has particular implications for monitoring population nutrient intakes. Food composition database providers must consider new and novel approaches to describing a rapidly changing food supply.