The USDA's National Food and Nutrient Analysis Program: update 2002

Abstract

The National Food and Nutrient Analysis Program (NFNAP) was designed in 1997 to develop robust and nationally representative estimates of the mean nutrient content of important foods in the food supply and significantly improve the quality of food composition data in the US Department of Agriculture's National Nutrient Databank. The underlying aims defining the process behind the NFNAP are: (1) evaluation of existing data; (2) identification of Key Foods and nutrients for analysis; (3) development of nationally based sampling plans; (4) analysis of samples; and (5) compilation and calculation of representative food composition data. Supported by a self-weighting stratified sampling design, the NFNAP approach has been applied to other sampling programs for the analysis of specific nutrients (e.g., fluoride-containing beverages and foods) and ethnic foods (e.g., American Indian foods). For select nutrients of potential health significance, additional sampling approaches allow for the estimation of serving-to-serving variability (e.g., highly processed foods). Under NFNAP, over 500 foods of the targeted 1000 important foods in the US food supply have been analyzed. Unrivaled research on food sampling, sample handling, and analytical methodology (e.g., for study of perishable nutrients in fresh produce) is integral to this effort. The NFNAP data are current, reflective of the market and nationally representative of the US food supply and therefore a crucial resource to health researchers, architects of nutrition policy, the nutrition and medical communities, and the food industry. They are released through the Web site: www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp