A quarter century of food composition work in Australia: lessons learned, future directions

Analysts, dietitians, nutritionists, food scientists and technologists, food service personnel, food regulators and others all use food composition data in the course of their work. However, despite great improvements in the availability of published literature and training materials in the last 25 years, students apparently still receive inadequate training in the principles of food composition data production, management and use. In Australia, the situation has been particularly exacerbated by the downturn in university funding and the move towards privatisation and commercialisation of knowledge, which inhibits access. Global trends in information technology should ideally improve access to knowledge but, in many instances, quality and reliability have been erroneously conferred on data simply by virtue of electronic format.