Abstract :
One of the most breathtaking assessments made yearly is that of the number of hungry people in the world. The latest estimate, released in The State of Food Insecurity in the World 20001, is that 826 million people are chronically hungry. National and international policies, aid and interventions are determined on the basis of this number. The methodology for this assessment is not some sophisticated satellite instrumentation. It is not based on clinical or biochemical indicators. This estimation of hunger depends on food composition tables, specifically energy values used with a list of 500+ food commodities in Food Balance Sheets. Most of us, even in the food composition scientific community, will not have realized that tables of energy data are absolutely fundamental to this assessment. But we in food composition know that energy values are not independent entities; we generally calculate energy from our protein, carbohydrate and fat values (and sometimes other things). So protein, carbohydrate and fat data are just as important. As shameful as we know it is to present carbohydrate values calculated by difference (100 minus the sum of water, ash, protein, fat, maybe "fiber" but maybe not, and sometimes other things), it is still widely practiced. So water and ash--providing no energy--become important for our energy calculation too. It is bigger and wider still, with the variety of methods of analysis giving different correct results, the different ways we can analyze and then aggregate components to achieve carbohydrate values, or the variety of factors we can use to convert nitrogen to protein. This is on top of the whole range of conversion factors we can use for each component energy. The breakdown of each commodity--not into nutrients, but into other foods--adds another dimension to the data. Take one commodity, say wheat, and turn it into a commodity tree. Trying to list key foods from wheat, and then applying nutrient values to all the different flours, meals, flakes, breads, pastries, etc., keeping track of changes in moisture content, dealing with each countryʹs unique extraction rates and fortification policies, etc., it all adds to the challenge of keeping those energy values as sound as possible. We know well the weaknesses and limitations. The spectrum of malnutrition covers more than energy, of course. As time goes on we expect to see international dietary assessments, micro-components as well as macro-components, relying on national and international food composition data sets with Food Balance Sheet data. In this issue of the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, we have data from specific areas of the world--not only individual countries but also an individual sea (the Baltic); data on proximates, micronutrients, bioactive non-nutrients, and antinutrients; and important papers on methods and assessments, and on formulated and food-based dietary supplements. The food composition data we generate, compile and disseminate, including the humble ash data, all contribute to the national and international assessments of, among other things, hunger and food insecurity. We must be aware that the impact of these data is immense and far reaching, because the quality of these data is in our hands. FAOʹs Statistical Databases, including Food Balance Sheets, can be found at this web site:http://apps.fao.org/page/collections 1Full text of The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2000 can be found at this web site:http://www.fao.org/FOCUS/e/SOFI00/sofi001-e.htm
