What’s in our food? The importance of food composition data for research and policies - Asia-Pacific

Hey, good afternoon distinguished speaker uh respected colleges, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the six sessions of the FAO technical lecture series 2026. On behalf of the food uh and agriculture coordination of the United Nations um and the Asian University Network for Agriculture and Food Security, the Asian University Network and Newra Malaysia. I would like to extend a very warm welcome to everyone joining us today. Thank you for continuing to be part of the lecture series and before we begin uh allow me to share some uh housekeeping reminders. uh today today's webinar will be recorded and then um kindly keep your microphone muted uh throughout the session and then we encourage you also to submit your question um throughout the lecture using the zoom Q&A and following the presentation I will moderate the Q&A session and direct the question to our speaker uh thank you again for the joining us so let me introduce uh today's lectures um is on the fundamental mentals of food composition data and explain why it's so important for nutrition research public health and agri food system and also this session will highlight common challenges in assessing and using food composition data particularly in the Asia-Pacific regions and also participant will also be introduced uh to the international network of food uh data system in foods uh coordinated by FAO and to its role in improving the quality uh and accessibility of food composition data worldwide and also some example of a FAO input to databases and also uh resources relevant to researchers in SA Pacific also will be uh discussed and also I would like to give a bit introduction of our speaker today um uh Dr. Fernando Grande, okay, is a nutrition officer specialing in food composition in the dietary intake and food composition team within the food and nutrition divisions of the food and agriculture organization of the United Nations. She holds a PhD in applied human nutrition from the Unity S. Paulo, Brazil with over 15 years of experience in food composition. She has contributed to the development and updating of 12 national and internationally published food composition tables and databases as well as one FAO in foods guidelines. Fernandanda has trained professionals from multiple countries through FAO infood online and inerson courses and also workshop. Since September 2025, she has served as the global coordinator in of infood the international networks of experts dedicated to improving the quality availability on use of food. So please join me in welcoming Dr. Fernandez Grande. Thank you for being us today. And now I think the session is yours. >> Thank you so much Miss Zera for this kind introduction. Uh good morning, good afternoon or good evening for everyone from uh anywhere that you are joining this session. Thank you so much for time and for attending this uh session today. It's my pleasure to be here with you. Uh let me start by sharing my screen. Uh just a second so we can have the presentation. to start. Um bear with me there. Three. Okay. All right. Now you should already see my slides. I want to see you as well. All right. So uh the session we are going to have today is what is in our food the importance of food composition data for research and policies in Asia P and the Pacific. And uh here uh I just want to mention again that I am a nutritionist. I'm working in the nutrition and uh uh food and nutrition division at FAO within the uh dietary assessment and food composition team. And today I want to give you an overview of what food composition uh data uh are, how they are generated, what is the importance and how can you get this information as well. So before I start, I would like to ask you to write here in the chat, if you have already used it food composition data in your research work, so you can uh please uh answer in the chat yes or no. So I can have an idea of how much how many of you are already aware of food composition data and have any experience with it. So if you can write in the chat we can have a look on the responses. So even if you uh are not familiar with food composition data in your work uh I'm sure that you might be familiar with nutrient values from a consumer perspective. So we uh have in the label of the food products available on the supermarket. We can see uh the nutrient content of the foods that we eat. And these values are um many times based on data from food composition tables and databases. So here we have an example of a food composition table from West Africa. And this is a very nice example of the information that you see in food composition tables. So for printed books or for PDFs you see pages and pages full of data. Uh of course there are other formats of food composition databases. Today uh the searchable websites websites are very common and the preferred format that we uh we have is the um machine readable formats. So for example, Excel files or other formats that are easier to extract and use the data and anyone that is familiar or have already used food composition data uh have already experienced how it's difficult sometimes to extract the information from PDFs for example or from searchable websites. So uh food composition tables and databases they basically describe the content of energy and nutrients uh from uh of foods but it also includes in addition to nutrients and and energy also information on edible portion and sometimes about also non-nutrients for example phyitochemicals and anti-nutrients. The food composition tables should include uh all foods ideally all foods consumed by a given population. So this should include raw foods, cook foods, the foods that are processed and also the recipes that we are also called mixed dishes because most of the foods they are consumed in this way. So ideally uh each country should have its own food composition table with the foods consumed by the local population because of course as you know the foods available in the different countries they vary the way that they are prepared is different as well and also other factors that affects the composition of foods they change from from country to country. So this is why this information should be country specific. uh food composition data is at the core of nutrition and agri food systems. So food composition table has many uh different uses. So for example, food composition data is very important to estimate nutrient intake and this information is extremely useful for many different um activities. Food composition data is also needed for establishing dietary guidelines, nutrient requirements, the food labeling that I mentioned at the beginning and it's also extremely important for research. So what if we want to establish any relationship between nutrient intake and also health or disease, we need food composition data. Food composition data should also be used for uh agricultural policies. So for example for breeding for selecting uh foods that are more nutritious and that should be pre prioritized for uh production and consumption of course for special diet formulation as well and for food aid or food fortification and all those activities that I mentioned they are extremely important for food nutrition health and agricultural policies. So food composition data is uh one of the pieces that forms the basis for all the activities. But how do countries actually move from foods to the numbers that we see in food composition tables? So ideally this process begins with uh food foods being sampled and analyzed specifically for the purpose of creating or updating a national food composition table and this uh requires a national sampling plan. So meaning that foods will be uh collected in different parts of the country to represent the foods that are available by the for the population. uh including for example different varieties, different brands, different seasons and also different regions of the country. The samples should then be analyzed using appropriate analytical methods using quality assurance procedures and this is what we say the ideal method for producing a food composition table and food composition data. However, this process as you may know uh is uh very expensive and requires specialized laboratory uh facilities and trained analysts as well. So uh this capacities uh both re uh from uh human and financial or even the facilities for doing this analysis sometimes they are not available in many countries. So often this uh leads to the need of finding alternative solutions to create food composition tables. And uh so what what countries do so many countries need to rely on additional approaches to build or update their n their national food composition tables and this includes in addition to the direct analysis which I mentioned is the um preferred or the uh ideal approach. We also complement this information with the compilation of analytical values from other sources. So usually from uh scientific literature. So if any of you here have already published uh food composition data in your scientific papers, you should know that this is of great interest of per people working on food composition tables because this is precious information that we can collect and include in this uh databases. We also have uh other options to make data calculation and imputation. So for example when we calculate the nutrient content of a cooked food based on the composition of the raw ingredients or sometimes we need to borrow uh values from other food composition tables. Uh ideally when we do this we choose uh food composition uh tables from neighboring countries because uh the foods we believe that the foods are more similar. And then when we think about the uh how food composition tables are created in most of the cases they are a combination of these two uh options. So the direct method. So an analysis done for the purpose of creating this food composition table and a a combination of all these other uh options that I mentioned here. So of course you can imagine that food composition tables they will vary a lot in terms of how they are created and the proportion of this direct analysis and all those other options that I mention and in terms of data quality and documentation and I will uh talk a bit more about this in a few slides. So food composition data is at the core of FAO uh of FAO's work and FAO has a long story in food composition data compilation and dissemination. This work is uh in bed and in the FAO's food and nutrition division work for uh over 25 years and uh food composition tables and databases are um typically prepared in collaboration with country governments and or uh universities as well. and the food and nutrition division division support uh countries and other FAO offices divisions and units compiling and using food composition data. On this uh on this slide here you can see some historical examples of food composition tables that exist only in printed uh paper format because they were published many decades ago. just as an example of uh how long FAO is working on food composition and uh FAO has also served as the global coordinator of the international network uh of food data systems that we call infoods since 1999. So the foods the international network of food data systems uh is a voluntary global network of experts established over 40 years ago to improve the quality availability reliab reliability and use of food composition data around the world and currently I'm serving as the global coordination coordinator and we have also a vice coordinator in India and regional data centers uh and coordinators around the globe. I will show you how oops I will show you how you can uh find information about the regional data centers and the global coordinators in a moment. So the FAO's activities in food composition data they uh are numerals and and varied and they include basically the development of upto-date and high quality food composition tables and databases. Also the generation of evidence on food composition data use and applications. the development of international standards and guidelines to uh help both uh food composition uh people preparing food composition tables and the users as well. And uh in addition we also coordinate the infoods network. We organize meetings, international conferences and many capacity buildings activity building activities on food composition. uh FAO has been involved in the publication of many national, regional, global and uh specific food composition tables. Here I'm bringing some examples from uh the past 15 years. And here you can see that it includes the recent oops the recent uh launched Ethiopian food composition table launched December last year. Also uh the uh West African and the uh Kenya food composition table and we also have other specific and global food composition table. So for example the fitate food composition table the efish the analytical and the biodiversity databases as you can see here the three databases are being uh update to make sure that they are up to date and as complete as possible. One uh recent activity I want to highlight in the region was the development of the Asian food composition database that was launched in 2024. This regional database was established by the rural development administration of Korea through the Asian food and agriculture cooperation initiative. The aim of this database was to generate information on the nutrient content for major agricultural products in Asia and to preserve food, culture and biodiversity. So the uh phase one was concluded and published in 2024 and the database includes uh information for more than 900 food items produced by 11 countries that were part of this project. It includes information on 16 components including uh macronutrients, carbohydrate, protein and fat. Uh minerals, vitamins and energy and the database can be downloaded from this website. And the phase two of this uh project is still ongoing. they will generate new analytical data for approximately uh an another 100 foods per country that are participating in the pro the project but now the focus is on uh traditional foods and recipes. So this is an important uh and recent activity in the region that I'm sharing uh with you. Um sorry I forgot to mention that uh FAO is uh collaborating of course with this project we have uh been providing some technical advice and also participating in the trainings that are part of this uh project. So in addition to preparing the food composition table, capacity development is an important part of this project and we have uh uh also been part of the train of training and the capacity development in this uh all the countries that are participating the project and the idea is that the this is uh the start for some of the countries that don't have a food composition table. so they can update or create their new food composition tables. Another uh important part of our work at FAO is uh the food composition web page. This food composition web page centralizes important uh food composition resources for both compilers and users of food composition data. this uh o the old version of the website had uh over 70,000 users in just in only uh one year. So showing the strong and growing interest for the topic. The entire page, the entire old page went through a major update and the phase one of this update became available just a couple of months ago. uh and this includes uh part of the content and the main page that is the page tables and databases which was the most accessed page on the previous website. So this one just to uh show you uh this uh page in this page you can find a list of published food composition tables at uh global regional and national level. This uh directory was first compiled by in foods almost 40 years ago and has been of course updated since then. But this last was uh this last update was based on a systematic review to make sure that it offers the most comprehensive and upto-date information available. Uh we also uh had feedback from Dean Food's regional data centers during this update and the aim of this directory is to increase access to food composition data by serving as a catalog of published food composition tables. So in this uh with this aim the inclusion of food composition databases in this directory does not mean that we recommend or or that we say that the food composition table is of good quality. So users here they can find the resources and they need to access the quality of the food composition table and if the data is uh fit for the purpose. I we have some tools to facilitate this assessment and I will show this information uh uh in a moment when we speak about the quality of food composition tables. But now I would like to pause the presentation a bit and move to the website just to show you quickly how you can search for food composition tables and other important information on the website. So let me change from the presentation to the website. So this is the new food composition website. It's a pleasure to present here. As I said, it was just launched two months ago. So here in the homepage, you have some basic information and some highlights uh regarding videos, e-learnings and news on food composition. On the overview you can see in the format of questions and answers some important information regarding food composition data. We have a session on nin foods. So here you have some uh information on the structure and roles uh information about the international food data conference which is the official infoods conference and information on the regional data centers and this is one of the pieces that I want to show you. So here if you come to the regional data centers you can find I will use the Asian foods just as an example you'll find the countries covered under a certain region when available uh if the the if the regional data center has an a website the link is here and you have the details for coordinator vice coordinator and scientific advisor when available. does this for all the different data centers. So if you are developing research uh using food composition data, it might be a good idea to contact our regional data centers for collaboration. Another important part here is the uh page that I just mentioned the directory where you have the tables and databases. So here in the map you can see all the uh region or sorry all the uh country specific food composition tables. So to make it easier so you can click and the map will show you the tables that are available for each country. So we can have a look here in Asia. Let's move. So for example here we have Thailand. We have two food composition tables here. We have three. And then when you click, you can see the uh the name and the year of the food composition table. But of course to facilitate the search, you can uh you will see the full list below uh ordered by alphabetical order uh below the map. But you can also search by free text, by location which is the country, by region and also uh by status. So here you will see a big list of food composition tables. And when you click I'll take the first one just as an example. When you click in one record you will see additional information about this record. So for example you have the country region the year of last publication if it's free access the format so here we have for example printed book and a static document it's a PDF the language when the data set is available online you have the link to the data set so this is external from FAO it's just a link we have the uh ecoring the screening questions of the FAO in foods evaluation framework. I will explain a bit more about it and you have the full reference. So the idea of this directory is to centralize all known food composition tables available and to make it easier for users to find this uh information and in addition to the tables and databases we have the resources. So here we have videos and webinars and publications and I invite you to navigate and to explore the website after our session. So now going back to our presentation after we did this turn this this um uh walk through the uh new website. I want to show you some of the findings we had after updating this tables and databases directory because after doing this exercise we could have a global picture of the data that is available around the globe and this is what I want to share with you now. So after updating the FAO info directory of food composition tables, we found that 107 countries have published at least one uh specific food composition table. Uh and this countries are marked in green here in the map. This is a significant achievement of course in terms of global coverage. However, as I mentioned, food composition tables, they vary a lot in terms of accessibility, format, frequency of updates and other quality aspect quality aspects. So uh considering all this um this uh issues related to food composition tables, we use it this uh updated directory to further access the key aspects uh to identify also opportunities to improve the quality of food composition tables. So in the next few slides I will show you some key findings of this assessments. So the first thing we did was to check the type of access of this food composition tables and we found that out of the 107 countries with at least one food composition table that we can see in this map only 71% of the food composition tables offer free access to the data. This means that almost onethird of the food composition tables are not freely accessible. So in some cases it's because they are available they are old and they are available only in printed format or because they require a paid subscription which can limit the data use. And we if we go further and also check the format of the food composition tables only 30% of the uh food composition tables available. They are both free access and available in user friendly formats and user friendly formats are as I mentioned for example Excel, CSV or similar formats that facilitate the data use and um application in other uh food composition in in other databases. So considering this aspect we can see that the availability of food composition tables has significantly decreased around the globe. Uh the formats like PDF, printed versions or even searchable websites they don't allow users to uh extract and handle the data in an efficient way. So this can limit the use of the data. And uh I want just to here we saw the global picture and I just want to mention that when we uh go to the countries in Asia we see that the the picture is basically the same as we see uh in the global map. So uh we found 32 countries in Asia that have published at least one food composition table and the proportion is more or less the same. 75% offer free access and only 25% are free access and in an userfriendly format. So you can see that uh the proportion is basically the same and that having free access and userfriendly formats is still an issue. But also uh when we go to the time since the last update of food composition tables, we also see uh some interesting findings. So here this map shows the time since the less publication for each of the 107 countries with uh at least one food composition table. The darker the shading the longer it has been. So as you can see there is a significant variation across countries. So while 39% of the countries published the the less less version uh less than five years ago, another 30% have gone more than 15 years without revision. This is the these are the countries shown in the darker column color. And this is an important aspect because even high quality data that was generated by direct analysis can become obsolete without frequent updates. And again highlighting uh Asian countries and you can see that the variation is also big and we can see countries that have published recently and countries that also have more than 15 years without any update. So just checking this initial quality aspects we found this big variation and then as a another step on this quality assessment we use it for selected food composition tables the FAO evaluation FAO in foods evaluation framework to access the quality of published food composition tables and databases. So this tool was develop developed for compilers and users of food composition tables. And the objectives are first for users to assist the selection of appropriate food composition tables for uh your use. So here you can have a picture of the quality and uh understand the strength and limitations of food composition tables. You can also uh use this uh evaluation framework to demonstrate areas of improvement for compiler. So people managing the food composition table they can see the aspects that could be improved in a food future revision. So those are the main uh objectives of this FAO in foods evaluation framework and this tool is available and you can find it through the uh food composition websites that I just showed here and in and this evaluation framework is composed of two uh different parts. So we have the screening questions we have eight screening questions and we have the full evaluation. So the eight screening questions they were uh um prepared to uh give an option of a quick assessment of key quality aspects while the full evaluation uh the full evaluation has almost 200 questions and is a very deep and detailed assessment. So to have an initial global picture of the gaps uh and strengths of food composition tables available around the globe. We applied this eight screening questions to some of the food composition tables that we found and uh the screening questions they cover the uh the four key uh aspects. So it access the food description and the food coverage, the component description and the component coverage data documentation and publication format. And I will give you some examples that will make it easier to understand. So when you go through these eight screening questions, you will see that the answers in most of the cases is yes or no. And uh they each question contributes to a cumulative score with a maximum of 120 points. And the uh evaluation framework suggests that 100 should be uh the the minimum that uh a good food composition table should get indicating that uh so if you have a food composition tables scoring less than 100 there is a need of improvement in critical aspects quality aspects for the food composition table. So what were the uh results of this assessment? So we accessed 80 food composition tables using this screening questions. Uh the uh tables accessed the country specific tables so were 71 and they are marked here. The countries which were had a food composition table accessed. This assessment was performed by two independent experts and then the uh assessments were compared and an agreement was uh found when the there was uh discrepancies. We accessed in addition to the 71 country specific also two global and seven regional food composition databases and what we got only 40% so 32 food composition tables scored more than 100 points in this uh quality assessment. So the remaining 60% did not meet this this considered minimum score meaning that improvements are needed for important part uh for important part of the uh food composition tables considered in this assessment. uh the individual scores for this uh assessment are published in the directory of food composition tables that are available on the FAO in foods website. So in the example I showed you there was there the score on the uh evaluation framework and uh for the food composition tables that were accessed. So only the total score is there but uh we have coming soon a peer-reviewed manuscript that was already submitted to the journal of food composition and analysis and in this manuscript we will give a lot of um much more details on this analysis that I showed here and also we will show for each food composition table the answers for all the individual a screening questions. So this information will be available for users as well. And now to finalize this um quality part, I want to share with you a few uh findings uh on the areas of improvement that we found for food composition and table because this is very extremely relevant for users of food composition data because um as users you should be aware of the limitations of food composition. tables to access uh the quality and also to uh be aware of the limitations of uh the uh interpretations of your analysis using the food composition data. So one of the uh important areas for improvement is related to the food coverage sorry to the component coverage. So uh less uh only 70 um sorry 67% of the food composition tables accessed they had less than the 16 components that we considered that should be included in the food composition tables and this is this list is uh is detailed here. So this list was established considering the components that are commonly presented in food composition tables and that are of uh big interest uh of uh for public health importance. So it is of great interest for of uh users of food composition data. So this should be what should be the minimum of components presented in a food composition table. So as you can see 67 food composition tables were missing at least one of this key components. Another important area for improvement is related to the food description. So half of the food composition tables had food names and descriptions that are not well specified for at least some foods. And what does it mean? So here I'm bringing an example of tuna can drained. It seems a good description of a food. When we read this, we can already imagine what this food is. But you see that one detail or one small detail that is missing in the food description. So the canning mean if the food is canned in water or oil in this case, the fat content is extremely different. So this is why a complete food description is extremely important. And of course here is just an example but there are many factors that should be reflected in the food description. And this should be uh when when you are using the food composition data you should uh consider this as an important aspect uh quality aspect in food composition tables. Another uh and finally another important area for improvement is related to the component description. So 43% of the food composition tables had components that were not well defined. When I say components I'm referring to the nutrients and energy most commonly food composition tables. And this is extremely important because sometimes the generic name and here I'm bringing vitamin A as an example is not enough to define a component. So in the case of vitamin A there are different different definitions and calculation methods for vitamin A. So depending on the definition that you use you can see that the values are completely different. And what does it mean that depending on how you are considering and how are you comparing this data it can make a big difference and especially if you are using more than one food composition table to take the nutrient values which is extremely common when we use food composition data that we need to take data from different food composition tables. If we mix this definitions in the case of vitamin A, it again will make a big difference in our conclusions. So this is why is extremely important that the components or the nutrients are very well defined in terms of definitions, calculation methods and also analytical methods used. So we can make sure that we are comparing um the same values and we are using the value that we want when we are using food composition data. So as you can see here I'm bringing this just a few issues and examples related to the quality of food composition table and this is recent work that was done here in FAO and of course that as part of our an important part of our work in food composition is related to capacity development. We do a lot of activities on capaci capacity development both remote and in person and today here is already a good example but I want to bring since this presentation is only uh a small part just to give you a taste of the uh all the uh aspects issues and considerations that we need to have when using food composition data. Of course, I want to bring you some other learning opportunities. So, we have the e-learning course on food composition data in the FAO e-learning academy. Uh, this course gives a basic knowledge and understand on essential issues related to food composition tables and it was designed primarily for using universities but it's of interest of anyone using or producing food composition data. It's also available in English in and French. And this is the second most popular this was the second most popular course on the FEO platform in 2024 with uh approximately 1,500 learners per year since its creation. Since this is a very specific course, it shows uh the importance and the interest. And I really encourage you who are working with food composition data somehow to take this course if you haven't done. We also have the e-learning course on aquatic foods for nutrition. And you can see that the lesson three focus on food composition data sources and use. This is complementaryary to the course that I just mentioned. And um if you are interested in learning more about aquatic food, you can take the entire course and lesson three focus on food composition as opportunity as an in-person opportunity. We are already also uh part of the the boarding um for organizing the food composition course on the production use uh and use of food composition data and nutrition. This is a very traditional course in the area. So you can see this that we already had 16 additions. The next one will be June uh 2027 in Vahim, the Netherlands. And there are a lot of information on the course web page and I will share this link with you after. And I really also strongly encourage you if you are uh working with food composition um data that this is a very good opportunity to learn and exchange a lot. uh in the topic. And last but not least, I want to um share with you that as I mentioned, the international food data conference is the official infood conference and the last one was held September last year here in FAO headquarters and you can find when I share with you the PDF of the presentation, you'll be able to also um click on the links here. But if you want to see the web page, you can scan the kia code and here you will find the agenda and the book of abstract and you can watch all the uh sessions the presentation for the three days. We have the recordings available. So it's quite recent. I really recommend it was a very uh nice and and fruitful uh conference and um we are preparing this special issue with lots of interesting articles that will come uh later this year. So to close, my takeaway message would be that food composition data is critical as you can see because it it's the basis for many activities on nutrition and also beyond nutrition. Uh and of course accurate up-to-date and country specific food composition data is key. The new FAO food composition website and especially the directory of food composition tables improves the access to uh global food composition data and related resources. Capacity development is key. So uh improves the quality and also promotes the appropriate use of food composition data. And considering the complexities of generating and using uh food composition data, collaborative efforts are needed. So local and regional activities are critical to advance food composition uh globally. So thank you so much for your attention. I'm open to questions and to discussion. And just before I finish, I would like to thank Bridget Holmes, the team leader of the dietary assessment and food composition team and the team members who are involved in many of the activities I presented here, including Doris, Yuko, Anna, and other uh the rest of the dietary assessment and and food composition data team at FAO. So uh thank you Miss Zera and uh I and back to you. >> Okay, thank you very much um Dr. Grande for very nice talk. I think it's very impressive to see how the food composition data serve you know like from the databases and then it keeps updating year by year uh for the nutrition science for food policy and also public health. So for now I think uh we would like to open the sessions for the Q&A. So if the participant do have some questions uh for Dr. Fernandez Grande. You can also write on the Q&A chat box. Um, so we can we can share the questions to our speaker today. >> There are three questions on the Q&A. >> Do you want me to take that? >> Uh, sure. Because I cannot see the questions here. There are three questions you can see. Uh where does the FAO get the data? This one of the the last one. >> Yeah. So um the data that FAO uh publishes in the food composition tables mo in most of the cases it comes from uh compilation of scientific articles as I mentioned. So it is analytical data but compiled from the scientific literature usually we don't do uh the direct analysis in our databases but when we are collaborating with countries so I can give Ethiopia as a recent example we we guide them and we do a mix as I explained so we take we do the direct analysis so meaning that the uh local experts. They sample the foods in the country and then they they send to the laboratory to do the analysis. But we also do the compilation of data available on scientific articles to complement this information and we also collect information on recipe calculation to um complement this information because as I mentioned it's uh not not an easy task to have a complete food composition table includes including all the foods consumed by the population using only the direct analysis. given the cost. So we do this mix of uh uh different sources. >> Okay, thanks. Uh I think uh maybe I just read the the second questions here. Uh why some of the data is not available in the database? is >> um I I'm not sure if I got this question but I think it's referring maybe to missing values. So it's when some of the data are not available in the database. So or maybe missing foods. So when you try to find a food in a food composition table and you don't find it or when you find the food but there are many blanks what we call missing values. So this is because the data is not available. It's it's really the biggest challenge when you are compiling and putting together a food composition table. The biggest challenge is to include all the foods because users they want to open the table and find the foods that they are interested in and also complete all the uh nutrient values that are there. So when they are missing is usually because they are not available. And when when we are doing a food or preparing a food composition table and we find this cases where we cannot add or include the data because it's not available. This is something that we keep in mind for a next update when we have the possibility to generate new analytical data. >> Okay. Thanks for the answer. So okay maybe I read the some more question here. Okay from the Dr. Fernandez uh talk is that the nutrient labels only get the information from a standard table and that that this mean the printed nutrients are not actual. M so this came came from I think my first slide when I showed the label and I said that in many cases the the data that we see in the label they are based on food composition tables. This is because in many cases it's not mandatory to send the food to the laboratory to do the analysis to prepare that information that we see in the label. Especially if we think in these smaller producers this would be really difficult because analyzing foods is very expensive. So this there is this option to calculate the the information that we see in the label based on food composition tables. So in some cases this information is indeed based on food composition tables and not on analysis performed to to create that information that we see on the label. >> Okay. Thank you. I hope uh this will answer the question from the participants. Yeah, it's not it's not >> there is one. >> Yeah, there's one more, right? >> The last one. >> Okay, I think there's more coming. I uh I read the question here. Okay. I've never used an FST before. May I know if FS FSCT FCT data is considered obsolete after certain years and is the evaluation framework used uh to determine this? >> All right. Um there is not a a there is not a cut off that I can say any food composition table published more than x years ago is not appropriate anymore. Uh in fact I think this is more more related to reflecting the foods that are still available in the market because there are many as I mentioned many factors that affect the composition of foods. So over years it can change the agricultural practices the uh varieties that are cultivated the type of foods and this will affect the composition. On the other hand also the analytical methodologies they change they um they get better over time more precise. So having new data is is good. So what we usually do as I mentioned we we don't have it's very difficult to analyze to generate analytical data for all the foods that are consumed by the population. So what we do we prioritize the foods that are consumed in higher quantities and also sometimes we focus on traditional foods on local foods because we want to show the nutritious values of these foods to promote their conception. So this is usually what we do. And just commenting quickly, I saw that another question just came on the barriers to prevent countries from meat from having high quality food composition tables. So uh I think that um a lot of discussion and a lot of capacity development is still needed. uh I didn't mention but we shared as much as we could all the results of our assessments with the data managers of the food composition tables because our idea doing this assessment is not point fingers and and show who has 100 and who has not achieved 100 but we want to open the dialogue and improve the quality and we were very uh surprised in a positive way because most of the data managers they were asking questions trying to understand more what they need to do and showing that they will improve uh certain aspects in the next versions of the food composition table. So I think that this is a good step forward to improve the quality of the food composition tables. >> Okay, I think we don't have more questions, right? Maybe I do have I do have one question for for Dr. Fernandanda. um because um my background is actually not um I'm a plant pathologist but um listening to your talk I think it's it's it's really informative for me uh because we we are not really concerning to see the labels and so on when we purchase foods and then um and also uh the food uh composition database I think is it seems like to continue updating from years to year so what are your suggestions and maybe uh some opportunities for young researchers you know like in Asians um if you think they would like to contribute to this very important field. I think um maybe from your side you have been like very expert in this area. Uh what is really your advice for the young researchers um to really get involved in this in this u in this area? >> Okay. Um for all the researchers that are here today, I would as I said I would strongly recommend that you collaborate because uh food composition tables they as I mentioned several times they are difficult to produce because of many reasons and collaboration and this is the main spirit of infoods. collaboration is putting people together to come with this important databases. So I would strongly recommend that you contact the coordinators in your region uh that cover your country the um the data centers in Asia they are very active and they are always open to collaborate. So I would strongly recommend that you contact, share experience and and even get some guidance on how to work on this area. I think this would be my main recommendation. >> Okay, nice. Thank you. Uh do we receive more question from the participants? >> No, maybe there's more question from the participants. I would like to really >> if they wish to speak we I can allow them to speak. Uh they just need to raise their hand. Um >> sure. >> So any more questions from the participants online? Okay. There's more. Okay. From Okay, I read these questions. Okay. Uh from their understanding the data come from national authorities in FAO uh member states. They they asking is it the data comes from the national authorities in FAO member states. This question for the Dr. Fernandez. >> Yeah. So yeah when when we are for example we uh when we are preparing a database like the fish database that we are updating now which is not a country specific it's a global database we do receive data from many different countries and uh different organizations sometimes universities uh and sometimes also uh other um organizations s and when we are collaborating specifically with a country to establish a national food composition table then it's a co-author or a collaboration and the uh national authorities are usually involved in this process. Yes, this is correct. >> Okay. So the data already derived from the um from the >> yeah especially for national food composition tables. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. There is one more question here. Is there any microplastics data? >> No food composition tables for the moment uh as much as I'm aware they don't cover microplastics data. >> Okay. Um okay >> sorry I only have one question because I heard about traditional foods and these are always considered neglected species. Uh what kind of examples do you have in relation to the the composition for this type of food traditional foods? >> You mean uh projects or >> Yeah. If if you can provide an example that um I don't know I'm thinking about native potatoes because I come from Peru. I don't know if you or there is other type of examples because by reading all the proposals from the students many I remember were linked to to try to conduct some research on indigenous traditional food on data composition but I don't know if it's something that can be if FAO has already you know some work ongoing or what is your suggestions on on this? Uh we have the biodiversity food composition table that probably includes a lot of the information. The biodiversity food composition table you can uh also access through the directory of food composition tables. If you type there you'll find it. uh this is a collection of information from scientific articles only on foods uh that represent biodiversity from the different countries. So it includes also the foods that are underutilized and sometimes the varieties that are not the most commonly consumed but sometimes they are richer uh in nutrients. So this is uh one good source to look for. And just to mention uh an initiative uh as an example as I said the second phase of the Asian food composition table now is focusing in traditional foods and traditional recipes. So the next version of the table will include this food for the all the countries that are participating the project. And even though this is a regional table, when you open the t the table, you will see uh the data by country. So you can identify if you are interested in data for any of the countries that are included in the project, you have the data for the individual countries with uh in the database. >> Okay, I think there's uh one more questions here. Um I think one's question is concerned on the data quality like in PH there is no concern there is a concern that multiple government authorities like agriculture statistic health science innovation do not seem to to talk and harmonize does the FAO database account notes for possible discrepancy mismatch so that that that was the questions that >> all Right. Yeah. This is uh an issue uh the lack of harmonization when especially when we use data from different sources. So this is why one of the aims of the infoods is to publish guidelines on how to publish the food composition data. So it's easier to exchange uh and inter interchange data among the different data sources. when you uh when you take a food composition table from uh FAO published by FAO uh all the the sources as I said we use different sources but all this data was harmonized and combined in a way that you can use this information within the database. Yeah. >> Okay. I think we do we do we have as more questions from the >> the participants? >> No. Right. >> As as I can see in my Q&A chat box, there's no more coming. No more. Right. Okay. Well, I think there's no more question from the So, okay, no more right Marilyn. No, I think I just want the last one, but I we have to close the the session. Um there is a where we can start and work or help contribute to improve the quality of the food composition tables maybe as a students uh or fresh graduate. >> Well, I think that the best way to start is to uh knowing more. So I think taking the courses that I recommended and I'm always open to discuss if you uh have questions related to food composition um on the website on the infoods website you have an email and if you send an email there it will probably me replying. So if you have any questions, any research questions you can related to food composition, I would be happy to help you if I can. >> Okay. Okay. I think we have to it's close to the end, right, Merlin? So uh as a moderator here I would like to thanks once again to our speaker today Dr. Fernando Grande for a very u informative uh talk okay given by you and I also would like to thank all the participants who joined these sessions. Um so as a reminder this uh this recording will be available I think in the Google drive that we share on the webinar chat. Okay. Uh and we also would like to take group photo right for >> yeah the group photo. Yes. Thank you. So I can do it. >> Three two one. >> Okay. >> Great. Okay. >> Sorry Justin. You were not. So, well, let's take another one. Sorry. >> Three, two, one. Yes. So, great. >> Hey. Yes. So, this is really good. Um, thank you so much, uh, Dr. Fernando. It was a pleasure to hear from you for all the students. Um just a quick reminder for all participants tomorrow we will have the presentation from bio economy on sustainable bio economy for agri food transformation by our colleagues from OCV and thank you very much looking forward to see you again. >> Okay, >> thank you. >> Thank you very much. Bye >> bye.