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FOOD CONSUMPTION AND COMPOSITION DATA

Objetivo

A. INTRODUCTION

Background: the FLAIR Eurofoods-Enfant Project

A group of scientists decided in 1982 to establish "Eurofoods" which had as its aim the improvement of the quality and availability of nutrient data in Europe. The idea was put forward in 1988 to extend the work to food and nutrient consumption in Europe and the Eurofoods group submitted a proposal to the FLAIR Programme. The proposal was merged with another proposal, aiming to develop a European network of food and nutrition tables. At a workshop in May 1990, a programme of action was drawn up and a Project Management Group appointed with representatives of those involved with the two proposals. The Eurofoods-Enfant Project started in October 1990 and ran until December 1993. The objective of the Project was to establish a comparable and compatible system of high quality data on food consumption and food composition. Such data can be used in the formulation of food and nutrition policy and for studying the relationship between diet and health.

Data on food consumption is necessary for those people interested in and responsible for policies, programmes, research and education on: consumption of foods and nutrients by the population; nutritional and health status of the population; food production, processing and distribution; macro and microeconomics; and the environment. Data can be collected at the country level by means of food balance sheets, at the household level through household budget surveys, and at the individual level through individual food consumption surveys. In order to measure the consumption of nutrients of individuals or of populations, it is necessary to have data available on the composition of foods. The data has to be of high quality and readily available.

Achievements of the FLAIR Eurofoods-Enfant Project

The need for various types of data on food intake was assessed; recommendations for improvement and harmonization of data were formulated; and guidelines were developed for the construction of compatible food composition databases. In order to measure the consumption of nutrients of individuals or of populations, it is necessary to have data available on the composition of foods. Dr D.A.T. Southgate and Dr H. Greenfield wrote a handbook on guidelines for the production, management and use of high quality data on food composition with particular attention being paid to the needs of users. These guidelines were published in September 1992 and will certainly contribute to the production of high quality data and improved use of this data.

The work on networking and compatibility of data had a number of facets all aimed at increasing the accessibility of data on food composition. Identification of foods can be done through food coding which is used in dietary studies (Eurocode food coding system). It can also be done through a food descriptor system such as that developed in the United States by the National Cancer Institute and the Food and Drug Administration referred to as LanGual. The Eurocode has been revised and was tested and evaluated in 1993. LanGual was examined to assess the usefulness in a European context. Various other aspects related to the compatibility of nutrient databases have been addressed. The results of a questionnaire on the identification of user requirements with regard to the establishment of a network have been analysed and inventories were compiled on software for use with nutrient databases and on the availability of data in nutrient databases in Europe. The Project has supported the development of a European database.

In order to bring the results of the project to a wider audience, a newsletter has been published at regular intervals. For more detailed information on the FLAIR Eurofoods-Enfant Project (COST Action 912), see the latest COST report.

Why a COST Action

The present proposal aims to continue combining the knowledge, expertise and work of European experts in the field of food consumption and food composition. It is expected that close collaboration on work related to the proposed topics will improve the quality and the compatibility of data.

B. ACTION OBJECTIVES

The primary objective of the proposed COST Action is merge knowledge and expertise of experts in COST countries in order to:

(a) To construct and establish a network of compatible food composition databases with the quality required for interpretation, description and exchange of high quality food consumption and food composition data.

(b) To ensure the continuity of collection and improve the quality and harmonization of food consumption data as available from food balance sheets and household budget surveys.

(c) To continue to improve the quality and compatibility of data for inclusion in tables and databases of food composition.

(d) To maintain and improve existing food coding systems in order to exchange data efficiently.

Secondary objective:

To provide information on food supplies, dietary patterns and the intake of nutrients and of non-nutrients.

C. SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME OF THE PROPOSED COST ACTION

Various aspects of food consumption and food composition data will be studied at the national and international level with a view to establishing a network of databases with the possibility to exchange high quality data. Research findings will be exchanged between experts through meetings, seminars and workshops. The meetings will focus on developing check-lists and/or formulating guidelines for the improved methods of collection, analysis, compilation and use of food consumption and food composition data.

Three main sub-projects have been identified, as follows:

* Sub-project 1. Food intake data
* Sub-project 2. Food coding
* Sub-project 3. Food composition data

In October 1994, the second postgraduate course on "Production and Use of Food Composition Data in Nutrition" will be organized in Wageningen, The Netherlands. During this course various aspects of the generation and use of data will be discussed. For fast information exchange, all participants will be encouraged to become connected to an electronic-mail system. A newsletter will be published regularly.

Sub-project 1. Food intake data

Due to the creation of one common Community market, it will no longer be possible to collect and compile data for inclusion in food balance sheets in the "traditional" way. The following tasks will be carried out:

- Recommendations will be formulated for compilers of food balance sheets and associated approaches at the country and regional level to ensure that the data compiled will be useful and meaningful from a nutritional point of view.

- Factors for converting food intake to nutrient intake used at present will be reviewed and documented properly.

- Recommendations will be made on the development of databases.

Household budget surveys can provide a useful source of data on food intake at the household level. However, by developing and using factors to convert food intake to nutrient intake, it is possible to estimate nutrient intake and to assess groups at risk of over or under consumption of particular nutrients. The emphasis will be placed on activities aiming at improvements in usefulness from a nutritional point of view, as sources of complimentary data to food balance sheets and individual intake studies. The activities on household budget surveys are as follows:

- The development of a database for converting foods consumed at the household level to nutrient intake and to document it properly.

With regard to studies on the individual intake of food, the topics that need to be investigated include:

- Monitoring individual intake of foods and nutrients, and non-nutrients, to discuss the methodology used by various countries, to compare and exchange experience, and to formulate guidelines or a checklist to increase the comparability of the results.

- The improvement of food intake measurements especially the development of automatic recording and possibly quantitative developments in food frequency assessments.

- Characterization of diets using other dimensions than nutrients, for example food groups at different levels of aggregation.

Sub-project 2. Food coding

Evaluation and testing of the Eurocode food coding, a system which is used in dietary studies, and the LanGual food coding system, a food descriptor system, were both positive and concluded that both systems could be useful in a European context. At a LanGual Working Group meeting in Lyon in June 1993 it was decided to form a Steering Committee and further test LanGual by using the data from a multi-centre epidemiological study. A final version of the Eurocode and handbook were expected to be ready in November 1993. For both systems software should be developed or improved to enable fast coding and to prevent unnecessary mistakes being made. Moreover, links should be established between food consumption data and food composition data. In order to promote the use of the food coding systems, help desks and a committee should be set up to decide on adding new codes or descriptors to the system and to keep the users informed about changes and updates in the system. An E-mail system will be established for fast dissemination of this type of information.

Sub-project 3. Food composition data

Before a network of compatible food composition databases can be established and data exchanged between institutes, various aspects of data need to be studied. This sub-project will be involved in the following activities:

- Studies on the variation in quality of data, procedures for sampling foods, choice of analytical methods, ways of expressing constituents, conversion factors used, compilation and dissemination of data.

- An examination of the various ways in which data on food composition and the databases in which the data are included are used.

- A search will be carried out to identify sources of food composition data per country and an inventory of laboratories regularly carrying out analyses on foods will be developed.

- Publication of inventories of data on the content of specific nutrients in foods such as fatty acids, dietary fibre, vitamin A and carotenoids, vitamin D, vitamin K, iron, and selected trace elements. Similar inventories will be published on the content of food components which influence bioavailability of specific nutrients such as tannins and phytic acid which reduce iron bioavailability.

- Database networking.

- Activities promoting the use and exchange of compositional data. Protocols will be drawn up for what should be considered as minimum requirements for data exchange, e.g. using INFOODS tags, source and quality markers, etc..

- Values will be identified for the nutrient composition of foods that are widely different in different tables and the formulation of recommendation and guidelines for the re-analysis of such foods in reputable laboratories.

D. TIMETABLE

The Action is planned to last for five years. At the first meeting of the Management Committee a list of tasks will be linked to the list of participants and the working groups will be established. Thereafter there will be a yearly evaluation of the achievements and the goals for the subsequent year will be set.

E. ORGANIZATION, MANAGEMENT AND RESPONSIBILITIES

A Management Committee will be set up following the signing by the appropriate number of proposed signatories to the Memorandum of Understanding. This Committee will work out its rules of operation at its first formal meeting in accordance with existing COST regulations. The Management Committee will meet twice per year to review progress, discuss future activities, co-ordinate all proposed activities in order to avoid duplication and ensure proper tuning of activities, and will also ensure that the Action will meet the overall objectives. The Management Executive Committee will consist of the Action Co-ordinator and working group leaders and they will take specific responsibility for ensuring that the work is of high standard.

The Action Co-ordinator will be responsible for preparing and distributing agendas and minutes or proceedings of Management Committee meetings, organizing meetings and workshops, disseminating results, establishing links with other related projects, and, if necessary publishing reports of activities.

Annual reports will be produced for the COST Senior Officials, and a detailed final report will be written. The final report will be based upon the technical reports prepared throughout the period of the Action.

F. ECONOMIC DIMENSION OF THE COST ACTION

Estimated effort in the joint European collaborative network is about 23 x 0,4 = 9,2 man/years at the national level, with total estimated cost of 552 OOO ECU/year, including institutional overheads. International or overhead costs would approximately be 15% of ECU 552 000, being 82 800 ECU/year.

Current status
Membership of Action
COST Action 99 is the only COST Action thus far in the history of the whole programme to have every COST country as a member of the Action. This means that 24 countries are members.

Working groups
The Action has the following working groups:
Food intake: food balance sheets (Professor H. Hendericks)
Food intake: household budget surveys (Professor A. Trichopoulou)
Food intake: individual level (Dr J. Haraldsdottir)
Food description/classification-Langual (Dr J. Ireland-Ripert)
Food composition data: data interchange (Mr F. Schlotke)
User priorities and data quality (Dr P. Finglas and Dr D. Buss)
Food composition data: European nutrient database (Professor C.E. West)
Subgroup on carotenoids (Professor C.E. West and Ms J. astenmiller)
Subgroup on folic acid (Dr P.Finglas)

Short term-scientific missions
In 1995 eight short-term scientific missions were carried out :
Dr G. Johansson (N) to Dunn Clinical Nutrition Centre, Cambridge (UK)
Dr M. Varadi (H) to National Public Health Institute, Helsinki (FIN)
Dr J. Haraldsdottir (DK) to Dunn Nutrition Centre, Cambridge (UK)
Dr A. Turrini (I) to CIQUAL, Paris (F)
Dr A. Kaic-Rak (CRO) to National School of Public Health, Athens (GR)
Dr I. Martins (P) to Institute for Chemistry and Biology, Stuttgart (D)
Dr D. Buss (UK) to the Department of Human Nutrition, Wageningen (NL)
Dr L.I. Dehne and Ms C. Klemm (D) to ETH, Zurich (CH)

In 1996 seven persons were able to take advantage of the short-term scientific mission (STSMs) programme to attend the Third International Course on the Production and Use of Food Composition Data in Nutrition (FoodComp'96) held in Wageningen (NL), 30 Sep/18 Oct 1996, which was organised by the VLAG (Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Nutrition, Food Technology, Agro-biotechnology and Health Sciences in conjunction with COST Action 99 and the Food and Nutrition Programme for Human and Social Development of the United Nations University, the Food Policy and Nutrition Division of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and the International Union of Nutritional Sciences. These seven people were:
Dr J. Ruprich (CZ)
Mr O. Reykdal (IS)
Dr M. Lucarini (I)
Dr M. Parpinel (I)
Mrs Elin B. Løken (N)
Ms A. Witkowska (PL)
Dra M. de Fatima Reis (P)

In addition Dr J. Haraldsdottir (DK) visited the Department of Human Nutrition, Wageningen (NL) and Dr M-L. Ovaskainen (FIN) visited the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in London (UK).
Meetings
In addition to FoodComp'96 mentioned above, the following meetings were held:
First meeting, Brussels (B), 13 Jan 1995
Second meeting, Modra (SLO), 29 May 1995
At the meeting, which followed the European Nutrition Conference in Vienna (A), the working plan for the Action was drawn up in more detail than at the initial meeting.
Third meeting, Lahti (FIN), 27 and 30/31 Aug 1995.
At the meeting, which was held around the Second International Food Database Conference, the following workshops were held:
Evaluation of energy intake data;
Data Interchange;
Terminology, nomenclature and food description;
Network for pan-European food intake data bank based on household budget surveys;
Food composition.
Fourth meeting, Stuttgart-Hohenheim (D), 8/9 Mar 1996.
At the meeting, the following workshops were held:
Food Description, Nomenclature and Terminology
DAFNE-Databank: report on Pan-European food data bank based on household budget surveys
Food Data Interchange: report on proposed international interface standard on food composition
Food composition data: the state of EURONIMS
Food intake at the individual level
Fifth meeting, Ede-Wageningen (NL), 19/21 Oct 1996
At the meeting, which followed FoodComp'96, the following workshops were held:
Evaluation of energy intake data;
Establishment of a working plan in the field of food composition data interchange for 1997/1998;
User priorities and data quality in food composition (including presentation and discussion of responses to questionnaires on analytical priorities, carotenoid content of foods and folate content of foods);
Food description, nomenclature and terminology.
Publications
Many manuscripts are in the process of being prepared for publication in 1997. A World Wide Web site has been established at the following address [http://food.ethz.ch:2000/cost99.html].
Work planned
COST Action 99 will be a sponsor of the Fourth International Graduate Course on the Production and Use of Food Composition Data in Nutrition (FoodComp'98) to be held in Wageningen (NL), 5/23 Oct 1997.

Convocatoria de propuestas

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Régimen de financiación

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Coordinador

CEC
Aportación de la UE
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Dirección
Rue de la Loi, 200
1049 Brussels
Bélgica

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Coste total
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