The Importance of Food Composition Data for Estimating Micronutrient Intake: What Do We Know Now and into the Future?

Abstract

Food composition tables and databases (FCT/FCDB) centralize data on the energy and nutrient content of foods of a certain country or region. They are essential for many activities related to nutrition. The main factors that can affect the quality of FCT/FCDB are the sources of the data, coverage of foods and components, food description, and component identification. Around 100 countries have published at least one FCT/FCDB, although many of them are outdated and vary considerably in terms of data quality, documentation, and accessibility. A great number of those FCT/FCDB contain very few up-to-date analytical data obtained for food composition purposes, resulting in many data being estimated or copied from publicly available FCT/FCDB from other countries. In addition, many other natural factors that can affect the composition of foods are often not reflected in FCT/FCDB, including biodiversity, maturation degree, soil, and harvest season. Therefore, the use of low-quality FCT/FCDB to convert food consumption data into energy and nutrient intakes may introduce errors resulting in under- or overestimated intake for a certain component. These wrong conclusions may lead to inappropriate or inefficient nutrition and health-related policies, especially to improve micronutrient status in populations and individuals.