EDITORIAL UNU Food Composition Activities
Concerned by the serious inadequacy of food composition data available for developing countries and the lack of interest and support for food analysis in these countries, a group of individuals met in the Rockefeller Conference and Study Center in Bellagio, Italy, under the sponsorship of the United Nations University with participation of FAO and WHO. Out of this 1983 conference came the design and scope of an International Food Data Systems network to be designated INFOODS. Its purpose would be to promote international cooperation in the acquisition and interchange of quality data on the nutrient composition of foods, beverages, and their ingredients. As a result, there are now regional data centers covering nearly all the countires of the world, and in the past years new regional food composition tables have been prepared for the Western Pacific, Southeast Asia, Central America, South America, Mexico, and the Central Asian Republics, with others in progress. The vitality of the INFOODS network is evident in the many regional meetings that are held each year and by the activity of its Internet discussion group.
Food composition data are being actively compiled into 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. A joint INFOODS-IUNS working group produced Compiling Data for Food Composition Data Bases (1).
The effective use of food composition data requires the precise identification of the nutrients and other food components 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 for the same food. Another INFOODS-IUNS committee produced Identification of Food Components for Data Interchange (2), the first comprehensive standardization of nomenclature for identification of nutrient and nonnutrient components of foods. The key to the interchangeability and accessibility of food composition data in the INFOODS system is the universal use of these specifications in the form of ''tagnames.'' Tagnames are quite flexible and allow any number of additional nutrient tags and qualifiers to be added. Adoption of these by developing and most industrialized countries has greatly facilitated the global interchange of such data.
Tagnames set out a straightforward set of rules for identifying food components precisely, but there are many other requirements for constructing data bases suitable for transfer of information between computers. INFOODS Composition Data Interchange Handbook (3) provides a systematic approach for international nutrient data exchange, and the structure and rules for moving data files between countries and regional organizations in a way that preserves all of the information available.
Another valuable joint INFOODS-IUNS publication presents the INFOODS guidelines for describing foods with the intent of facilitating interchange of food composition data between nations and cultures by compilers of nutrient data bases (4). The system is a broad, multifaceted, and open-ended description mechanism using a string of descriptors. These guidelines are being reexamined and expanded.