Call to action: A need for community-driven minimum information standards for food composition data

Authors: BLUMBERG, KAI - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE); McKillop, Kyle; Pehrsson, Pamela; Fukagawa, Naomi

Submitted to: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/30/2025
Publication Date: 7/2/2025
Citation: Blumberg, K., Mckillop, K.A., Pehrsson, P.R., Fukagawa, N.K. 2025. Call to action: A need for community-driven minimum information standards for food composition data. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 122(3):703-711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2025.06.027.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2025.06.027

Interpretive Summary: In this manuscript we outline the history of how institutions like the USDA and United Nations have created and managed food composition tables and databases in the United States and around the world. We also explain how minimum information standards are guidelines for reporting specific types of data and we detail examples of minimum information standards that have been created and used to standardize data from many scientific disciplines. Finally, we describe the need for the creation of a new minimum information standard for the description of food composition tables and databases, and give examples of existing institutions and tools that can be used to help the process.

Technical Abstract: The foods we eat have a fundamental impact on our health; however, there are many challenges associated with capturing the nutritional variability of foods sourced from ever evolving and increasingly global food production systems. In the United States and around the world, there have been many efforts to collect high quality analytical food composition data. However, a gap remains about how to link and reuse these data in combination, resulting in challenges of data “siloing”. Furthermore, historical standards have typically provided guidelines rather than strict programmatically enforced schemas for data reporting. Similar challenges have been overcome in various life-science and informatics disciplines by the creation and adoption of community-driven Minimum Information Standards for reporting domain-specific data types. In this work we discuss historical and current developments of food composition efforts, as well as efforts made in the development, adoption, and use of other reporting standards to illustrate the urgent need for the creation of a universally accepted data reporting standard for food composition data. We call for the creation of an open working group to develop this new standard. Additionally, we outline existing organizations, standards, and tools relevant to the development of a new standard. Finally, we detail expected activities for the working group, as well as anticipated challenges to developing and deploying a globally acceptable food composition data reporting standard.