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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #132885
Title: ASSIGNING PYRAMID SERVINGS TO USDA NUTRIENT DATABASE CODES

Author
item Friday, James
item Cook, Annetta

Submitted to: National Nutrient Databank Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/17/2002
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals utilizes the USDA Nutrient Database (NDB) for Standard Reference and the Survey Recipe Database to calculate the nutrient values for USDA survey foods. The Community Nutrition Research Group (CNRG) has assigned Pyramid servings to USDA survey food codes using the Survey Recipe and other supporting databases. To fulfill a growing need, CNRG's Food Link Pyramid Servings Database is being expanded to include foods in the NDB. Many NDB foods matched the Food Guide's criteria of a Pyramid food and were assigned to one major Pyramid food group. The remaining foods were mixtures containing ingredients belonging to more than one Pyramid food group. Ingredients of these mixtures were assigned NDB codes and amounts of each ingredient in the mixtures were estimated. Food Link reference Pyramid servings weights were assigned to each NDB code with a Pyramid assignment and used to calculate the number of servings in 100 grams of each SR NDB code. For example, 100 grams of low fat yogurt with fruit (NDB code 1121) contains nearly 2 of a yogurt serving, less than 1/10 of a fruit serving, almost 1 gram of discretionary fat, and nearly 3 teaspoons of added sugar. The Pyramid Servings Database for Standard Reference will permit users of USDA's food composition data to estimate Pyramid servings for varying measures of NDB foods and determine the nutrients per Pyramid serving for NDB codes assigned to a single Pyramid food group.