Development of an Arabic food composition database for use in an Arabic online dietary assessment tool (myfood24)

Using Popular Foods Consumed to Inform Development of Digital Tools for Dietary Assessment and Monitoring

Knowing the type and quality of the most popular foods consumed by a population can be useful in the design of technologies for monitoring food intake and interventions. The aim of this research was to determine the most frequently consumed foods and beverages among the Australian population and provide recommendations for progressing the design of dietary assessment technologies. Analysis of the first 24 h recall of the most recent Australian National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey was conducted. The most popular foods and beverages consumed by energy (kJ) and by frequency were calculated. There were 4515 separate foods and beverages reported by 12,153 people. Overall, the top 10 foods that contributed most energy included full fat milk, beer, white rice, white bread, red wine, cola soft drinks, bananas, red apples, wholewheat breakfast cereal and white sugar. The five most frequently reported foods and beverages were tap water, black tea, full fat milk, instant coffee, and sugar. Understanding the most popular foods and beverages consumed can support innovations in the design of digital tools for dietary surveillance and to reduce under-reporting and food omissions. These findings could also guide the development of more tailored and relevant food databases that underpin these technologies.

Rationalisation of the UK Nutrient Databank for Incorporation in a Web-Based Dietary Recall for Implementation in the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Programme

The UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey rolling programme (NDNS RP) commenced in 2008 and moved in 2019 from a traditional paper food diary to a web-based 24 h recall, Intake24. This paper describes the approach to update and downsize the underlying UK Nutrient Databank (NDB) for efficient data management and integration into Intake24. Consumption data from the first 10 years (2008/2009 to 2017/2018) of NDNS RP informed decisions on whether foods from the extensive UK NDB were to be retained, excluded, revised or added to for creation of a rationalised NDB. Overall, 5933 food codes in the extensive NDB were reduced to 2481 food codes in the rationalised NDB. Impact on assessment of nutrient intakes was evaluated by re-coding NDNS 2017 data using the rationalised NDB. Small differences were observed between estimated intakes (Cohen’s d ≤ 0.1) for all nutrients and there was a good level of agreement (Cohen’s κ ≥ 0.6) between the extensive and rationalised NDBs. The evaluation provides confidence in dietary intake estimates for ongoing nutritional surveillance in the UK and strengthens the evidence of a good agreement between concise food databases and large food databases incorporated into web-based 24 h recalls for estimating nutrient intakes at the population level.

Development of an Innovative Online Dietary Assessment Tool for France: Adaptation of myfood24

myfood24 is an innovative dietary assessment tool originally developed in English for use in the United Kingdom. This online 24 h recall, a tool commonly used in nutritional epidemiology, has been developed into different international versions. This paper aims to describe the creation of its French version. We used a consistent approach to development, aligned with other international versions, using similar methodologies. A nutritional database (food item codes, portion groups and accompaniments, etc.) was developed based on commonly used French food composition tables (CIQUAL 2017). Portion sizes were adapted to French dietary habits (estimation, photographs of French portion sizes, assessment of the photograph series and their angle (aerial vs. 45 degrees)). We evaluated the new tool, which contained nearly 3000 food items with 34 individuals using the System Usability Scale. We validated the French food portion picture series using EFSA criteria for bias and agreement. The results of the picture evaluation showed that the angle with which photos are taken had limited impact on the ability to judge portion size. Estimating food intake is a challenging task. Evaluation showed "good" usability of the system in its French version. myfood24 France will be a useful addition to nutritional epidemiology research in France.

Development of a nutrition management software based on selected Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes to support personalized diet and weight management

The nutrient composition of 50 commonly consumed Jordanian food dishes was determined to support the development of a novel nutrition management system designed to assist with dietary intake assessment and diet management. Composite dishes were selected by interviewing households located in the northern region of Jordan. For each dish, five different recipes were collected from experienced chefs and the typical recipe was formulated based on the average weights of ingredients and net weight of the dish. Proximate composition as well as vitamin and mineral contents were determined and related to ingredient composition and cooking conditions. The newly created food composition database was used to develop a user-centric nutrition management software tailored to reflect the characteristics of the Jordanian diet with representative items from this diet. This novel nutrition management system is customizable, enabling users to build daily meal plans in accordance with personalized dietary needs and goals.

Development of an Unified Food Composition Database for the European Project "Stance4Health"

The European Commission funded project Stance4Health (S4H) aims to develop a complete personalised nutrition service. In order to succeed, sources of information on nutritional composition and other characteristics of foods need to be as comprehensive as possible. Food composition tables or databases (FCT/FCDB) are the most commonly used tools for this purpose. The aim of this study is to describe the harmonisation efforts carried out to obtain the Stance4Health FCDB. A total of 10 FCT/FCDB were selected from different countries and organizations. Data were classified using FoodEx2 and INFOODS tagnames to harmonise the information. Hazard analysis and critical control points analysis was applied as the quality control method. Data were processed by spreadsheets and MySQL. S4H’s FCDB is composed of 880 elements, including nutrients and bioactive compounds. A total of 2648 unified foods were used to complete the missing values of the national FCDB used. Recipes and dishes were estimated following EuroFIR standards via linked tables. S4H’s FCDB will be part of the smartphone app developed in the framework of the Stance4Health European project, which will be used in different personalized nutrition intervention studies. S4H FCDB has great perspectives, being one of the most complete in terms of number of harmonized foods, nutrients and bioactive compounds included.