The German Nutrient Database – present developments, potentials and prospects

B. M. Hartmann, S. Bell, A. L. Vásquez-Caicedo, A. Götz, Ch. Brombach, Karlsruhe

The German Nutrient Database is the basis for the final analysis of energy and nutrient intake of epidemiological and food consumption studies in Germany. Since May 2004, the BLS is located at the Federal Research Centre for Nutrition and Food (BfEL) which is responsible for its further development, care and updating.

At present, the database comprises about 10 000 foods, each of which is described by 133 components. Nutrient data are based on analysis results obtained at the BfEL and by its national research partners. These data are supplemented by data published in the scientific literature or by data listed in international nutrient data banks. The BLS contains nutritive values of about 1200 mainly non-processed food items.

Analyzing ready-to-serve dishes is expensive and time consuming. Nutritive values of these dishes are therefore calculated on the basis of data of individual ingredients. For such calculations, loss occurring during preparation – nutrient retention and weight yield factors – must be precisely known. A recently developed modular online calculation platform comprises analytical data as well as nutrient retention factors, weight yield factors, deductions and portion sizes. Each nutritive value is combined with all important metadates required for documentation. In this way data transparency is provided.

Within the frame-work of the European Food Information Resource Network (EuroFIR) the BLS-team is working on a standardization of food description and classification in order to enable a Europe-wide analysis of food composition data and therefore simplify comparisons of epidemiological and consumption studies. An online portal (www.bls.nvs2.de) published early this year provides an efficient and user friendly entrance to the present version II.3.1 of the database. Version II.4 will appear in early 2007. This revised version will be optimized for data analysis of the second National Nutrition Survey (NVS II). Version III will follow in 2009 and will represent a completely new nutrient database with revised food classifications and descriptions.

Key words: German Nutrient Database / developments / potentials / prospects

Sie finden den Artikel in deutscher Sprache in Ernährungs-Umschau 04/06 ab Seite 124.