Abstract
BackgroundFood-based dietary guidelines are promoted to improve diet quality. In applying dietary recommendations, such as the MyPlate, the number of servings in a food group is the unit of measure used to make food selections. However, within each food group, different foods can vary greatly in their nutritional quality despite often having similar energy (caloric) values. This study aimed to develop a novel unit of measure that accounts for both the quantity of energy and the quality of nutrients, as defined by caloric and micronutrient density, respectively, in foods and to demonstrate its usability in identifying high quality foods within a food group.MethodsA standardized unit of measure reflecting the quality of kilocalories for nutrition (qCaln) was developed through a mathematical function dependent on the energy content (kilocalories per 100 g) and micronutrient density of foods items within a food group. Nutrition composition of 1806 food items was extracted from the USDA nutrient database. For each food item analyzed, qCaln ratios were calculated to compare qCaln to its caloric content. Finally, a case example was developed comparing two plates adapted from the MyPlate.ResultsExamples of food items with highest and lowest qCaln ratios were displayed for five food groups: vegetables, fruits/fruit juices, milk/dairy products, meats/meat alternatives, and breads/cereals. Additionally, the applicability of the qCaln was presented through comparing two plates, adopted from the USDA MyPlate, to show differences in food quality.ConclusionsThe newly developed qCaln measure can be used to rank foods in terms of their nutrient density while accounting for their energy content. The proposed metric can provide consumers, public health professionals, researchers, and policy makers with an easy-to-understand measure of food quality and a practical tool to assess diet quality among individuals and population groups.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12937-016-0215-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Food-based dietary guidelines are promoted to improve diet quality
The Healthy Eating Index (HEI) 2005 and the more accurate and up-todate Alternative healthy eating index (AHEI) 2010 are based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans whereby researchers assess the frequency of consuming food items and the nutrient intake within and among food groups, respectively, compared to these dietary guidelines [2]
Ratios of quality of kilocalories for nutrition (qCaln) that are greater than 1.0 can be interpreted as higher quality food per calorie, whereas qCaln ratios that are less than 1.0 represent lower micronutrient content per food item compared to its caloric content
Summary
Food-based dietary guidelines are promoted to improve diet quality. In applying dietary recommendations, such as the MyPlate, the number of servings in a food group is the unit of measure used to make food selections. The HEI 2005 and the more accurate and up-todate AHEI 2010 are based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans whereby researchers assess the frequency of consuming food items and the nutrient intake within and among food groups, respectively, compared to these dietary guidelines [2]. Both indices were successful in finding associations between diet and health outcomes, such as obesity and chronic diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer [3]. A major shortcoming is the difficulty of determining which foods within a food group
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