Recipe Files, and Nutrient Retention Factors)
, and data sets based on tables of special interest. These data sets are offered in ASCII and DBF formats. The home page also has a search engine for looking up values in the USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference-Release 11, a system for submitting data to the food composition data base, and a link to other food composition and nutrition home pages. This is an historical first for those working in the area of food composition and analysis. With the publication of these data sets on the Web, the move from the very slow world of printed data bases to the rapid world of the modern information age has begun. As the announcement said, ''It is time to archive the red books'' (Handbook 8). Users of food composition data no longer need keep bookshelves of volumes and volumes of printed pages of composition data. It's all available on the WWW. Information available on the Web can be downloaded into PC files within a matter of seconds or minutes. Updated and new data can be made available by the USDA as soon as it is ready for release. No longer must we wait for the next publishing cycle. Have a question or a comment? Send it to the home page. Have new or revised data? Send it to the home page. Need a quick look at the composition of a new food or the level of a different nutrient in an old food? Look it up using the search engine on the home page. These are exciting changes which should have a significant impact on all the areas that make up food composition data. If you have not yet joined the information age, the availability of the Nutrient Data base on the Web might just be the thing to make you sign on to the WWW.
While anticipated on-going improvements will enhance this WWW food composition data system, the Nutrient Data Laboratory is to be commended for its pioneering efforts to make food composition data sets more available to the end users. The potential for future improvements in rapid updating of nutrient values, universal availability of nutrient data, and better search engines-all at low costs to the end userbodes well for the future of food composition data bases.
Congratulations to the Nutrient Data Laboratory of the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture for a great start into the modern information age. Our readers are encouraged to visit this exciting new web site at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp.