Acknowledgments

The United Nations University's International Food Data Systems Project (INFOODS) began as a comprehensive effort to improve and make available food composition data from and for all countries of the world. One of the first steps taken by INFOODS was to convene a workshop to identify and discuss the various purposes for which food composition data are needed and the ways in which they are currently being produced, maintained, and distributed. This volume contains the background papers prepared for that workshop and the results of the subsequent discussion on what needs to be done.

Data on the nutrient content of foods are critical in many areas - health assessment, the formulation of appropriate institutional and therapeutic diets, food and nutrition training, epidemiological research, etc. For many parts of the world, however, such data are lacking or inaccessible, incompatible, and incomplete. This volume offers a careful assessment of what is needed, the extent to which these needs are currently being met, and the essential long-term solutions to the existing problems. It also formulates the goal of the UNV-INFOODS project to ensure that eventually anyone around the globe will be able to obtain adequate and reliable food composition data.