Foods and Nutrients

This chapter considers the various perspectives from which diet can be viewed and discusses the calculation of nutrient intakes from data on food consumption. Diets of human populations are extremely complex. They can be viewed in several ways, including as intake of constituent chemicals (such as essential nutrients, non-nutritive components of foods, and contaminants) or as foods, food groups, or dietary patterns. Maximal insight into the relation between diet and disease will usually be obtained by examining diet both as constituents and as foods. Calculation of nutrients and other constituents requires a food composition database that should include a wide range of nutrients with values that are complete and current.