Documentation of aggregated/compiled values in food composition databases; EuroFIR default to improve harmonization

Documentation of all information concerning foods, components, values and references is essential to maintain a food composition database. To users, it provides information on origin and quality of the data. Nevertheless, recent evaluation of value documentation of macronutrients according to the EuroFIR Standard in 26 European food composition datasets showed inconsistencies. The documentation of aggregated (calculated from initial values) and compiled (created within the database to complete missing data) values was not fully comparable, since different thesauri terms were used in different countries for similar situations. In this light, it was recognized that automated value documentation linked to automated procedures to calculate values from means, recipes and formulae could contribute to better harmonisation between databases. A working group thus developed guidelines for default value documentation of aggregated/compiled values, using the current EuroFIR Standard and thesauri. Options for aggregation/compilation in the FoodCASE data management system were taken as starting point. The guidelines were implemented in the FoodCASE software (version 5.5.0), resulting in automated and harmonized value documentation for aggregated/compiled values when using FoodCASE. Default documentation can also be implemented in other software. Applying this default for harmonized documentation of aggregated/compiled values will assist compilers and increase transparency and comparability of (European) food composition data.