Changes in Dietary Guidance: Implications for Food and Nutrient Databases

Two types of dietary guidance for Americans have recently been released, and both have important implications for the way data are organized on food and nutrient databases. New dietary reference intakes (DRIs) have been set for 17 nutrients, and in several cases the units for these recommendations do not match those traditionally carried on nutrient databases. Furthermore, some of the tolerable upper intake levels (ULs) are specified only for supplemental and fortification forms of nutrients, which necessitates calculating separate intake values for nutrients from foods and nutrients that are added to foods or taken as supplements. The year 2000 revision of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans also suggest new ways to evaluate dietary intakes: there is an increased emphasis on obtaining an appropriate number of servings from food groups such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lowfat dairy products. To allow users of nutrient databases to provide relevant evaluations of dietary data, developers will need to consider carrying a much larger array of variables in order to calculate intakes of folate in folate equivalents, vitamin E as alpha-tocopherol (not as alpha-tocopherol equivalents), nutrients occurring in foods versus added or supplemental nutrients, and the number of servings from a variety of food groups.• re information on the DRIs, see:. re information on the year 2000 Dietary Guidelines, see: