FOOD CONSUMPTION DATA

C. Nutrition Surveys

Many countries carry out nutrition surveys to monitor the nutrient intake of the population and thus determine the adequacy of the diet. Three survey methods are normally used: food diary records, records of the weight of foods consumed, and dietary recall. Nutrient intakes can also be estimated using food balance sheets and household surveys, but these methods provide such crude estimates that they are seldom used for this purpose. A review of the errors associated with the use of diary records, food weighing, and dietary recall methods indicates that there is a need to improve the accuracy of these methods (Bingham, 1985). Random errors, systematic errors, or both may be introduced by the use of nutrient tables for foods (estimated error range 2–20%), by coding errors of the investigator, by the use of estimated food weights as opposed to weighing each food sample (20–50%), and by the reporting errors of the 24-h recall method (4–400%), to name but a few. Indeed an investigation of the accuracy of retrospective dietary assessments indicated that al- though dietary habits alter, the retrospective dietary recall of earlier dietary habits was strongly influenced by the current dietary regime (Jain et al., 1980; Jensen et al., 1984). Therefore the experimental design of such studies requires careful planning to obtain accu- rate and useful data.

D. The Use of Food Consumption Data in Food Additive Intake Studies

There are a variety of criteria that can justify the use of food consumption data files from nutrition surveys for estimating food additive intakes despite the risk of errors just mentioned. When a study objective is the estimation of national average food additive intakes , it is necessary to use food consumption data in which no subgroup is overrepre- There are a variety of criteria that can justify the use of food consumption data files from nutrition surveys for estimating food additive intakes despite the risk of errors just mentioned. When a study objective is the estimation of national average food additive intakes , it is necessary to use food consumption data in which no subgroup is overrepre-

a nutrition survey are not available, then data from household surveys should be used to estimate additive intakes.