Maintaining a nutrient database in a changing marketplace: Keeping pace with changing food products - A research perspective

Maintenance of a food and nutrient database for dietary research involves providing the right foods and nutrients for study participants, while keeping the database a size and format that can be updated rapidly and completely. The database must include (1) foods reported by study participants, (2) new foods that appear in the marketplace, (3) nutrients of research interest, and (4) for each food, a nutrient profile with no missing values. For efficient and timely updating, the database is kept to a manageable size by (1) grouping foods of similar nutrient content into a single database entry; (2) adding only foods widely consumed by most study participants. (3) including foods as usually prepared, (4) including foods only if adequate nutrient data are available, (5) allowing ingredients to be varied to provide multiple nutrient profiles from a single recipe, and (6) providing researchers the ability to add foods specific to their study to their individual database. The Nutrition Data System for Research (NDS-R) maintained by the Nutrition Coordinating Center at the University of Minnesota is a research tool used to collect and analyze dietary intake data. The food and nutrient database within NDS-R includes commodity and brand name foods commonly consumed in the United States, as well as foods for special ethnic and age group populations. Currently, this database contains 108 nutrients or food components for 17 000 foods. (C) 2001 Academic Press.