SOUTH AFRICAN FOOD DATA SYSTEM

SAFOODS is steered by the Nutritional Intervention Research Unit of the South African Medical Research Council to provide South Africans with a country-specific food composition database.

SAFOODS contains information on the energy and nutrient content of foods generally consumed by South Africans. Information on food composition captured in SAFOODS comes from different sources, e.g. chemically analysed food, other international food composition databases, scientific articles, and recipe calculations. The reference sources of the nutrient information are captured in SAFOODS and available from the food composition database compilers.

Presently SAFOODS contains nutrient information on 1 472 food items. A shortened version of the South African Food Composition Database is available online.

Different products, e.g. printed tables and software programs containing information from SAFOODS are produced.

To promote and strengthen food composition activities in South Africa a national body, the South African Food Data Advisory Group (SAFDAG) was formed in 2008.

A food composition database can never be complete and needs constant revision. Improving and increasing the information captured in SAFOODS are the main objectives of compilers of the database.

SAFOODS explained (pdf format, 300 kb)

Focus area leader
Dr Petro Wolmarans

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Presentations from the Food Composition Data: Lab to Label symposium, 9 November 2011. Read more.