Trends in Food Science & Technology. 2014;37:152-161
General limitations of the current food consumption surveys and available food composition databases are presented and discussed.
In this paper, general limitations of the current food consumption surveys and available food composition databases are presented and discussed. Apart from the identification of general limitations, this paper identifies other approaches that could be used to monitor and evaluate trends in dietary exposure to micronutrients through voluntary fortified foods.
Dietary assessment data are essential for designing, implementing and evaluating food fortification and other food-based nutrition programs. But there is a need to further develop food composition databases (both at nutrient and ingredient level).
The efforts made by EFSA (EU Menu and FoodEX) should be further supported and developed along with cooperation with the food industry to obtain better information on food fortification. One clear limitation of the consumption and composition data presently available is the current scope and purpose of the collection methods. In many instances, the programmes are implemented without the specific aim of monitoring fortified food intake. As a result, it would be beneficial to have future schemes that are specifically tailored to answering questions relating to fortification. Such programmes could be smaller and more frequent than the current national dietary monitoring projects, and include identification of relevant products (market evolution) as well as regular assessment of both consumption and composition. One possible option could be the introduction of post marketing surveillance, as used for the monitoring of foods with added phytosterols.
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