Abstract

PEREZ GRANA, R.. Accuracy of food composition tables in the determination of nutrients. Sanid. Mil. [online]. 2013, vol.69, n.2, pp.102-111. ISSN 1887-8571.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S1887-85712013000200008.

The food composition tables constitute an indispensable tool to carry out a nutritional evaluation of foods or of intake in the Armed Forces. They offer semi quantitative information, more exact for the macronutrients or some major mineral elements (potassium, calcium and phosphorus), and less exact for vitamins and trace mineral elements. The differences between the food composition tables and the chemical analyses vary depending on the bibliographic sources consulted. High differences are cited for some nutrients: dietary fiber, sodium, iron, monounsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids and some vitamins. These differences are explained by the natural variability of the foods (animal feeding, fertilization of the ground, maturation degree, origin region, etc.), technological treatments, sampling plan and others. Their accuracy increases when intake estimates are carried out in long periods of time or in the case of big population groups. When high accuracy is required (metabolic studies, clinical research, etc.) the calculation of nutrients should be based on direct chemical analysis. Not all food composition tables indicate the variability of each nutrient (standard deviation, confidence limits), number of analyzed samples, confidence codes for each nutrient to inform the user of their reliability

Keywords : Accuracy; Food composition tables; Nutrients.

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