Nutritional evaluation of the full-day diet

Abstract

Nutrition plays an important role in human life. So far, there have been discussions focusing on the nutritional value of individual foods, separate dishes, or daily meals. However, they have not taken into account the composition of the diet in the longer term. The aim of this work was to evaluate a full-day diet from a currently renowned company that is producing box diets on the Czech market against a full-day diet of twenty randomly selected students. The results showed that the box diet met the required amount of protein, fat, vitamin E, cholesterol, and also the optimal intake of n-6 and n-3 fatty acids. The amount of saturated fatty acids (SFA) was only slightly increased. Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) content averaged 38 mg day–1, which did not meet the current requirements. The students' full-day diet was variable, the individual differences were large. Protein intake could be assessed as sufficient in most cases. The total fat intake ranged from 21 g day–1 to 126 g day–1. Seven out of twenty samples would satisfy the recommendation for SFA. The content of the essential acids EPA and DHA was below the detection limit with the exception of one sample (containing herring fillets).