How is information on the composition of foods produced?
Information on the nutritional composition of food originates from chemical analyses of individual constituent nutrients, which are carried out in analytical laboratories. Information on the nutritional composition of manufactured and composite foods (foods containing more than one ingredient) is usually derived from the sum of the nutrientcompositions of all the ingredients contained within that food. This presents a number of challenges because of changes that can occur with different nutrients, to different extents, during processing. So, calculating the nutritional composition of a processed food may be more accurate if it is based on the sum of the cooked ingredients (rather than the raw ingredients). But the most precise method for assessing the nutrient value of a composite food is to analyse the food directly (Greenfield and Southgate, 2003), which is expensive. In practice, numerous different calculation and estimation procedures are in use throughout Europe. Future developmen
