Food Standards Agency
Sunday 5 July 2009
Safer food better business banner
AZ-Directory
What's NewRSS
What is RSS?Listen
Listen to this siteThe report of this review is available.
The Food Standards Agency was established in April 2000. In May 2000 a review of the Agency’s research and surveillance was commissioned to examine whether it provided the robust evidence base the Agency would need to develop policy and underpin its advice. The review concentrated on management and procurement and recommended that each individual programme of research be reviewed to ensure it was delivering outputs and outcomes that would support the Agency in its objectives.
The analytical method component of the Dietary Surveys and Nutrients in Food Programme (N08) was reviewed by a panel of external experts and the future direction of the programme was deliberated in a workshop held on the 7 May 2002. This report records the outcome of the review of the N08 research programme on the development of analytical methods for nutrient analysis.
This research programme contributed to the development of improved methods of analysis for heme and non-heme iron, cis and trans carotenoids, vitamin D, vitamin B6, fatty acids, folates, and non-milk extrinsic sugars. In addition it sought to examine questions about the derivation of representative composite samples and loss of nutrients during cooking and preparation.
The losses of nutrients in cooking and preparation were determined in a small range of vegetables but work in this area was limited due to other priorities within the programme. Research calls were made during the programme to examine the current method for compositing samples for nutrient analysis. No proposals were received.
A number of projects were commissioned to develop methods of analysis for nutrients in food. These resulted in further development of methods for the identification of heme and non-heme iron, cis and trans-carotenoids, the individual vitamers of B6, cis and trans fatty acids, and individual folates. This work has informed further international work on nutrient analysis methods. However, the projects themselves did not result in fully validated and documented methods of analysis and dissemination of the results of the individual projects was poor. The projects have nevertheless provided a range of values for nutrients in foods that have been used to estimate intakes for policy and research purposes.
The methods of estimating non-milk extrinsic sugars were recently appraised under the programme and a recommended approach was proposed. This will now need to be published.
Overall the reviewers considered that the programme had further developed analytical methods for a number of nutrients and that this had made a significant contribution to the science in this field. The reports, however lacked detail on the quality control procedures used (information that would now be expected); however, the procedures used may have been considered appropriate at the time the work was carried out. Similarly the reports do not provide fully validated and documented methods that could be easily utilised by other laboratories less experienced in the area.
As a result of this review the main contractor, LGC, will be asked to publish in peer reviewed journals the results of work that is not already in the public domain and to improve the recording, where possible, of quality control measures in reports that have yet to be published by March 2003.
A workshop held to examine the future direction of the programme identified that for the nutrients of interest there were now methods of analysis available but that the data on levels of a few nutrients were variable. It was recommended that the programme focus on validating both this data and the methods of analysis that had been developed. It was also recommended that nutrient losses during processing, preparation, storage, and cooking be further examined. The workshop also felt that a further research call should be made to investigate whether current methods of compositing food samples for nutrient analysis are as representative as possible of the national food supply.
The conclusions of this review, in conjunction with the review on the Composition of Foods series and the review on dietary surveys, will be used to inform the development of new objectives for the research required to support the dietary survey needs of the Agency. The results of the dietary survey review and the Composition of Foods review are due in March 2003.
Back to top
Katie Dick
Tel: 020 7276 8927
E-mail:
katie.dick@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk
Download pdf
(pdf 75KB) (External) Get Adobe Acrobat reader You may need the free Acrobat Reader to view a pdfFind out what our other sites have to offer