Evaluating the ≤10:1 wholegrain criterion in identifying nutrient quality and health implications of UK breads and breakfast cereals

This article has been published in a revised form in Public Health Nutrition DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980017003718. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © 2017 The Authors. Under embargo until 26 June 2018.Objective: To evaluate the nutrient quality of breads and breakfast cereals identified using the wholegrain definition of ≤10:1 carbohydrate:fibre ratio. Design: Following a cross-sectional study design, nutritional information was systematically gathered from food labels of breads and breakfast cereals that met the ≤10:1 carbohydrate:fibre criterion. The median nutrient content was compared with the UK Food Standards Agency nutrient profiling standards and the association between carbohydrate:fibre ratio and other nutrients were analysed. Subgroup analyses were undertaken for products with and without fruit, nuts and/or seeds. Setting: Products from four major supermarket stores in the UK. Subjects: 162 breads and 266 breakfast cereals. Results: Breads which met the ≤10:1 criterion typically contained medium fat, low saturated fat, low sugar and medium sodium. Breakfast cereals typically contained medium fat, low saturated fat, high sugar and low sodium. In both groups, as the carbohydrate:fibre ratio decreased, fat content increased (bread: p=0.029, r=-0.171; breakfast cereal: p=0.033, r=-0.131) and, in breakfast cereals, as the ratio increased, sugar content increased (p<0.0005, r=0.381). Breakfast cereals with fruit, nuts and/or seeds contained, per 100 g, more energy (p=0.002), fat, saturated fat and sugar (all p<0.0005) while seeded breads had more energy, fat and saturated fat (all p<0.0005). Conclusions: Overall, breads and breakfast cereals meeting the ≤10:1 criterion have good nutritional quality, suggesting that the criterion could be useful in public health and/or food labelling. The utility of applying the 10:1 criterion to products containing fruit, nuts and/or seeds is less clear and requires further research.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Dietary factors modulate iron uptake in Caco-2 cells from an iron ingot used as a home fortificant to prevent iron deficiency

Iron deficiency is a major public health concern and nutritional approaches are required to reduce its prevalence. The aim of this study was to examine the iron bioavailability of a novel home fortificant, the "Lucky Iron Fish™" (LIF) (www.luckyironfish.com/shop, Guelph, Canada) and the impact of dietary factors and a food matrix on iron uptake from LIF in Caco-2 cells. LIF released a substantial quantity of iron (about 1.2 mM) at pH 2 but this iron was only slightly soluble at pH 7 and not taken up by cells. The addition of ascorbic acid (AA) maintained the solubility of iron released from LIF (LIF-iron) at pH 7 and facilitated iron uptake by the cells in a concentration-dependent manner. In vitro digestion of LIF-iron in the presence of peas increased iron uptake 10-fold. However, the addition of tannic acid to the digestion reduced the cellular iron uptake 7.5-fold. Additionally, LIF-iron induced an overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS), similar to ferrous sulfate, but this effect was counteracted by the addition of AA. Overall, our data illustrate the major influence of dietary factors on iron solubility and bioavailability from LIF, and demonstrate that the addition of AA enhances iron uptake and reduces ROS in the intestinal lumen

Measuring diet in the 21st century: use of new technologies

The advent of the internet and smartphone technology has allowed dietary assessment to reach the 21st century! The variety of foods available on the supermarket shelf is now greater than ever before. New approaches to measuring diet may help to reduce measurement error and advance our understanding of nutritional determinants of disease. This advance provides the potential to capture detailed dietary data on large numbers of individuals without the need for costly and time-consuming manual nutrition coding. This aim of the present paper is to review the need for new technologies to measure diet with an overview of tools available. The three main areas will be addressed: (1) development of web-based tools to measure diet; (2) use of smartphone apps to self-monitor diet; (3) improving the quality of dietary assessment through development of an online library of tools. A practical example of the development of a web-based tool to assess diet myfood24 (www.myfood24.org) will be given exploring its potential, limitations and challenges. The development of a new food composition database using back-of-pack information will be described. Smartphone apps used to measure diet with a focus on obesity will be reviewed. Many apps are unreliable in terms of tracking, and most are not evaluated. Accurate and consistent measurement of diet is needed for public health and epidemiology. The choice of the most appropriate dietary assessment method tends to rely on experience. The DIET@NET partnership has developed best practice guidelines for selection of dietary assessment tools, which aim to improve the quality, consistency and comparability of dietary data. These developments provide us with a step-change in our ability to reliably characterise food and nutrient intake in population studies. The need for high-quality, validated systems will be important to fully realise the benefits of new technologies

Methods to Express Dispersion of Results in Food Composition Data

In Europe one feature of National Food Composition Databanks (nFCDBs) is to provide data soundly supported in standardized quality assurance procedures. It is now widely recognized that the evaluation of the degree of dispersion associated with a result is an essential part of any quantitative analysis. According to recent requirements the concept of data quality incorporates the evaluation of the measurement uncertainty (MU) as an indicator of the reliability of the result. The aim of this work is to study the typification of approaches used to estimate measurement uncertainty in food composition analysis in compliance with the criteria established in the “Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement (GUM)”. The work addressed the approaches founded on the modelling of the measurement process as described in the GUM (chapter 8), and on the experimental approaches, typically precision and bias data, obtained from within-laboratory validation studies, quality controls, inter-laboratory method validation studies or proficiency testing schemes.This work was completed on behalf of the EuroFIR Nexus consortium and funded under the EU 7th Framework Food Quality and Safety Programme

Food Data Interchange between GS1® Portugal, INSA and EuroFIR Enabling Improved Labelling and Consumer Food Information

European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme FP

External Scientific Report - Updated food composition database for nutrient intake

This report is the final report of the EFSA contract CFT/EFSA/DCM/2011/03. The aim of the project was to provide EFSA with an updated food composition database covering approximately 1750 foods in combination with additional FoodEx2 facet descriptors included in the EFSA FoodEx2 classification system, and to expand the dataset to include harmonised information on the most common composite recipes of European countries and harmonised information on food supplements. Proposals for models of nutrient composition, composite dishes and food supplement databases were developed as well as guidelines for mapping food data in national datasets to EFSA FoodEx2 codes and facet descriptors. A model for data transfer, compatible with the EuroFIR technical annex and CEN Food Data Standard, and the EFSA data structure was developed and tested. Fourteen national food database compiler organisations supplied initial food lists mapped to the EFSA food list. Information on commonly consumed composite dishes was provided by compilers from thirteen countries and information on food supplements was provided by compilers from eight countries. Datasets compatible with EFSA‟s data structure were produced based on the models. In addition, guidelines developed and limitations of the data produced are discussed.EFS

Food composition at present: new challenges

Food composition data is important for stakeholders and users active in the areas of food, nutrition and health. Newchallenges related to the quality of food composition data reflect the dynamic changes in these areas while the emerging technologies create new opportunities. These challenges and the impact on food composition data for the Mediterranean region were reviewed during the NUTRIMAD 2018 congress of the Spanish Society for Community Nutrition. Data harmonization and standardization, data compilation and use, thesauri, food classification and description, and data exchange are some of the areas that require new approaches. Consistency in documentation, linking of information between datasets, food matching and capturing portion size information suggest the need for new automated tools. Research Infrastructures bring together key data and services. The delivery of sustainable networks and Research Infrastructures in food, nutrition and health will help to increase access to and effective use of food composition data. EuroFIR AISBL coordinates experts and national compilers and contributes to worldwide efforts aiming to produce and maintain high quality data and tools. A Mediterranean Network that shares high quality food composition data is vital for the development of ambitious common research and policy initiatives in support of the Mediterranean Diet.The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the many members of EuroFIR and RICHFIELDS project (funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation funding programme under grant agreement no. 654280) partners who contributed to the developments referred to in this articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Development of a new branded UK food composition database for an online dietary assessment tool

The current UK food composition tables are limited, containing ~3300 mostly generic food and drink items. To reflect the wide range of food products available to British consumers and to potentially improve accuracy of dietary assessment, a large UK specific electronic food composition database (FCDB) has been developed. A mapping exercise has been conducted that matched micronutrient data from generic food codes to “Back of Pack” data from branded food products using a semi-automated process. After cleaning and processing, version 1.0 of the new FCDB contains 40,274 generic and branded items with associated 120 macronutrient and micronutrient data and 5669 items with portion images. Over 50% of food and drink items were individually mapped to within 10% agreement with the generic food item for energy. Several quality checking procedures were applied after mapping including; identifying foods above and below the expected range for a particular nutrient within that food group and cross-checking the mapping of items such as concentrated and raw/dried products. The new electronic FCDB has substantially increased the size of the current, publically available, UK food tables. The FCDB has been incorporated into myfood24, a new fully automated online dietary assessment tool and, a smartphone application for weight loss

New food composition data on selected ethnic foods consumed in Europe

Background: Reliable data on the composition of foods is needed to better understand individual diets, measure nutrient intakes and provide nutritional guidance for improving the health of the populations. Ethnic foods are becoming increasingly popular among all European consumers, and are the main source of nutrients in the diets of ethnic groups. However, there is limited information on the nutrient composition of ethnic foods in Europe. The objective of this study therefore was to generate new and reliable data on ethnic foods using harmonised methods for chemical analyses. Methods: New data on 128 ethnic foods were generated for inclusion in the national databases within the European Food Information Resource Network of Excellence through participants from France, Israel, Spain, Denmark, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom. In each selected country, the list of prioritised foods and key nutrients, methods of analyses and quality assurance procedure were harmonised. Results: This paper presents the nutrient composition of 40 ethnic foods consumed in Europe. The nutrient composition of the foods varied widely because of the nature and variety of foods analysed, with energy content (kcal) ranging between 24 (biteku-teku, Blegium) and 495 (nachos, Italy) per 100 g of edible food. Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids were generally higher in most ethnic foods consumed in Italy and Spain compared with ethnic foods of other countries. Conclusions: The new data were scrutinised and fully documented for inclusion in the national food composition databases. The data will aid effective diet and disease interventions, and enhance the provision of dietary advice, in all European consumers

Food Composition at Present: New Challenges

Food composition data is important for stakeholders and users active in the areas of food, nutrition and health. Newchallenges related to the quality of food composition data reflect the dynamic changes in these areas while the emerging technologies create new opportunities. These challenges and the impact on food composition data for the Mediterranean region were reviewed during the NUTRIMAD 2018 congress of the Spanish Society for Community Nutrition. Data harmonization and standardization, data compilation and use, thesauri, food classification and description, and data exchange are some of the areas that require new approaches. Consistency in documentation, linking of information between datasets, food matching and capturing portion size information suggest the need for new automated tools. Research Infrastructures bring together key data and services. The delivery of sustainable networks and Research Infrastructures in food, nutrition and health will help to increase access to and effective use of food composition data. EuroFIR AISBL coordinates experts and national compilers and contributes to worldwide efforts aiming to produce and maintain high quality data and tools. A Mediterranean Network that shares high quality food composition data is vital for the development of ambitious common research and policy initiatives in support of the Mediterranean Diet