Food composition data provide information about the nutritional composition of the edible part of foods that are commonly consumed within a population and are the cornerstone of our understanding of nutrition and health. Food composition databases (FCDBs) are used in a variety of settings, including clinical practice, research, public health, agri‐food industry and digital personalised nutrition applications. One of the most practical applications in nutrition and dietetics is the use of composition tables for dietary assessment in both nutritional studies and for planning therapeutic diets. This chapter focuses on national and international databases. To ensure conformity of FCDBs, datasets must demonstrate transparency in aggregation, validation and compilation based on standardised documentation and quality evaluation. FCDBs need to continue to evolve and expand alongside developments in nutrition and clinical research. The challenge will be to ensure rigorous data quality standards underpin any new information.

Abstract This technical report evaluates the quality and representativeness of national Food Composition Databases (FCDBs) across 16 EU, EFTA, and IPA countries to support the development of the open‐access EU FCDB. Using harmonised methodologies, this technical report applies a modified INFOODS quality framework to assess both overall database quality and the quality of individual nutrient values, alongside a structured qualitative approach to evaluate representativeness in relation to national consumption patterns, food supply, and data systems.Datasets were standardised according to EFSA requirements, including FoodEx2 coding and EuroFIR thesauri, and subjected to extensive validation, harmonisation, and integration processes. Results show consistently high dataset quality, with countries achieving A and B ratings and an average of 89% of values classified as high quality (A+B). Improvements observed between phases largely reflect enhanced documentation, transparency, and interoperability rather than major changes in analytical accuracy.Representativeness is achieved through diverse national strategies, including linkage to dietary surveys, use of key food or prioritisation approaches, integration of market and branded food data, and analytical sampling programmes. However, variability remains across countries in methodology, update frequency, and coverage of branded foods, fortified foods, and supplements.Key limitations include fragmented food supplement data, inconsistent application of prioritisation methods, and resource constraints affecting analytical capacity and database updates. The increasing reliance on branded food data also presents challenges related to nutrient coverage and data stability.The report recommends improving food and nutrient coverage, strengthening harmonisation and documentation practices, enhancing analytical data generation, and increasing collaboration and transparency. Overall, it provides a strong framework to improve the quality and representativeness of FCDBs, supporting a harmonised and sustainable EU FCDB.

A key aim of the FNS-Cloud project (grant agreement no. 863059) was to overcome fragmentation within food, nutrition and health data through development of tools and services facilitating matching and merging of data to promote increased reuse. However, in an era of increasing data reuse, it is imperative that the scientific quality of data analysis is maintained. Whilst it is true that many datasets can be reused, questions remain regarding whether they should be, thus, there is a need to support researchers making such a decision. This paper describes the development and evaluation of the FNS-Cloud data quality assessment tool for dietary intake datasets. Markers of quality were identified from the literature for dietary intake, lifestyle, demographic, anthropometric, and consumer behavior data at all levels of data generation (data collection, underlying data sources used, dataset management and data analysis). These markers informed the development of a quality assessment framework, which comprised of decision trees and feedback messages relating to each quality parameter. These fed into a report provided to the researcher on completion of the assessment, with considerations to support them in deciding whether the dataset is appropriate for reuse. This quality assessment framework was transformed into an online tool and a user evaluation study undertaken. Participants recruited from three centres (N = 13) were observed and interviewed while using the tool to assess the quality of a dataset they were familiar with. Participants positively rated the assessment format and feedback messages in helping them assess the quality of a dataset. Several participants quoted the tool as being potentially useful in training students and inexperienced researchers in the use of secondary datasets. This quality assessment tool, deployed within FNS-Cloud, is openly accessible to users as one of the first steps in identifying datasets suitable for use in their specific analyses. It is intended to support researchers in their decision-making process of whether previously collected datasets under consideration for reuse are fit their new intended research purposes. While it has been developed and evaluated, further testing and refinement of this resource would improve its applicability to a broader range of users.

Plant-based (PB) food products have surged in popularity over the past decade. Available PB products in the UK market were extracted from NielsenIQ Brandbank and compared with animal-based (AB) counterparts in their nutrient contents and calculated Nutri-Scores. The amino acid contents of four beef products and their PB alternatives were analysed by LC-MS/MS. PB products consistently exhibited significantly higher fibre content across all food groups. Protein was significantly higher in AB products from all food groups except beef and ready meals. PB products were more likely to have higher Nutri-Scores compared to AB counterparts, albeit with greater score variability within each food group. Nutrient fortifications were primarily focused on dairy and ready meals; the most supplemented nutrient was vitamin B12 (found in 15% of all products). A higher proportion of EAAs in relation to total protein content was observed in all beef products.

These two data sets are collections of best quality data on vitamin D content in foods, available in Europe (hosted by EuroFIRTM) and in US (hosted by USDA- in SR26). Data was collected in period of 2014-2015. Search criteria included analytical and manufactures' data sources, and these are sorted in food groups and vitamin D forms- vitamin D total (expressed in ug/100g or IU, and converted to ug), vitamin D3 (ug/100g), vitamin D2 (ug/100g), vitamin 25OHD (ug/100g). A manuscript describing creation process of these two dataset is uploaded as well.

Background: Eating habits must change substantially in order to address the urgent societal challenges of per-sonal, public and planetary health. Research surrounding various facets of the dietary transition remains siloed, hindering breakthroughs.Scope and approach: We argue the scientific case for transdisciplinary research centered around the transition to healthy, sustainable, and acceptable diets. This transition requires tackling the broad societal challenges of engaging consumers in the diet transition, improving nutritional health and achieving environmental sustain -ability of foods and food systems.Key findings: The crucial synergies and trade-offs from addressing single challenges in isolation are discussed, as well as obstacles when considering the collaboration between the multiple scientific disciplines concerned with the dietary transition. Currently, interactions between these challenges remain understudied and/or ambiguous, in part due to a lack of interoperable data and standards. Intersectional research entry points acting at the intersection of the three challenges are explored: food taste and texture reformulation, food pricing strategies and food literacy. The implementation of such cross-cutting interventions urgently requires both the generation of new data and exploitation of the breadth of existing data. Researchers must therefore be facilitated to find, access and use interoperable data to model and measure food intake and all its determinants.Conclusions: The dietary transition requires underpinning by a research infrastructure that supports access to transdisciplinary data, facilities and research tools, alongside training and capacity building. Filling these unmet data, tools and training needs is the first step towards delivering breakthrough innovations to foods and food environments, mobilizing consumers to engage in the dietary transition.

Background: To address the epidemic burden of diet-related diseases, adequate dietary intake assessments are needed to determine the actual nutrition intake of a population. In this context, the eNutri web app has been developed, providing online automated personalized dietary advice, based on nutritional information recorded via an integrated and validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Originally developed for a British population and their dietary habits, the eNutri tool has specifically been adapted to the German population, taking into account national eating habits and dietary recommendations. Objective: The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the system usability and users' experience and feedback on the eNutri app in a small-scale preliminary study. The secondary aim is to investigate the efficacy of personalized nutrition (PN) recommendations versus general dietary advice in altering eating habits. Methods: The app was piloted for 4 weeks by 106 participants from across Germany divided into a PN group and a control group. The groups differed according to the degree of personalization of dietary recommendations obtained. Results: An overall System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 78.4 (SD 12.2) was yielded, indicating an above average user experience. Mean completion time of the FFQ was 26.7 minutes (SD 10.6 minutes). Across subgroups (age, sex, device screen sizes) no differences in SUS or completion time were found, indicating an equal performance for all users independent of the assigned experimental group. Participants' feedback highlighted the need for more personalized dietary advice for controls, while personalized nutritional recommendations improved the awareness of healthy eating behavior. Further improvements to the eNutri app were suggested by the app users. Conclusions: In total, the eNutri app has proven to be a suitable instrument to capture the dietary habits of a German population sample. Regarding functionality, system usability, and handling, direct user feedback was quite positive. Nutritional advice given was rated ambivalent, pointing to several weaknesses in the eNutri app, minimizing the system's full potential. A higher level of personalization within nutritional advice subjectively improved the app's usability. The insights gained will be used as a basis to further develop and improve this digital diet assessment tool.

Food, nutrition, and health are linked, and detailed knowledge of nutrient compositions and bioactive characteristics is needed to understand these relationships. Additionally, increasingly these data are required by database systems and applications. This communication aims to describe the contribution to databases and nutrition fields as well as the activities of EuroFIR AISBL; this member-based, non-profit association was founded to ensure sustained advocacy for food information in Europe and facilitate improved data quality, storage, and access as well as encouraging wider exploitation of food composition data for both research and commercial purposes. In addition to the description of its role and main objectives, a snapshot of EuroFIR AISBL’s activities over the years is also given using a quantitative research literature analysis approach. The focus of this communication is to provide descriptions and updates of EuroFIR’s online tools, i.e., FoodEXplorer, eBASIS, and PlantLIBRA, by highlighting the main uses and applications. Integrating food-related infrastructures and databases, following standardized and harmonized approaches, and considering interoperability and metrological principles are significant challenges. Ongoing activities and future plans of EuroFIR AISBL are highlighted, including, for instance, work within the Food Nutrition Security Cloud (FNS-Cloud) to make food, nutrition, and (food) security data more findable, accessible, interoperable, and ultimately reusable.

Non-communicable diseases are on the rise and are often related to food choices; nutrition affects infectious diseases too. Therefore, there is growing interest in research on public and personal health, as related to food, nutrition behaviour and well-being of consumers throughout the life cycle. These concepts and their relations are complex and only partially understood – more data is needed to improve our understanding. The required data include deep geno- and phenotyping data from human nutritional studies, covering metabolic and health, but also including behavioural and socio-economic data. The aim of this white paper is to provide a guiding framework for the future contributions of ELIXIR’s recently established Food & Nutrition (F&N) Community. This white paper is the direct result of a strategy meeting that took place in September 2019 in The Hague (NL) and involved representatives of 14 countries representing the ELIXIR Nodes. The meeting led to the definition of F&N related bioinformatics challenges, including the use of standards for data reuse and sharing, and for interoperability of data, tools and services, advocacy and training. Resolving these bioinformatics challenges makes it possible to address a wide range of F&N-related challenges, such as definition of an individual health status, individual dietary needs, and finding complex intake biomarkers (to replace questionnaires). Here, we provide suggestions on how to align these tasks within the ELIXIR Platforms, other ELIXIR Communities/Focus Groups and the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures.

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.

Background: A better understanding of food-related behaviour and its determinants can be achieved through harmonisation and linking of the various data-sources and knowledge platforms. Scope: We describe the key decision-making in the development of a prototype of the Determinants and Intake Platform (DI Platform), a data platform that aims to harmonise and link data on consumer food behaviour. It will be part of the Food Nutrition Health Research Infrastructure (FNH-RI) that will facilitate health, social and food sciences. Approach: The decision-making was based on the evidence of user needs and data characteristics that guided the specification of the key building blocks of the DI Platform. Eight studies were carried out, including consumer online survey; interview studies of key DI Platform stakeholders; desk research and workshops. Key findings: Consumers were most willing to share data with universities, then industry and government. Trust, risk perception and altruism predicted willingness to share. For most other stakeholders non-proprietary data was most likely to be shared. Lack of data standards, and incentives for sharing were the main barriers for sharing data among the key stakeholders. The value of various data types would hugely increase if linked with other sources. Finding the right balance between optimizing data sharing and minimizing ethical and legal risks was considered a key challenge. Conclusions: The development of DI Platform is based on careful balancing of the user, technical, business, legal and ethical requirements, following the FAIR principles and the need for financial sustainability, technical flexibility, transparency and multi-layered organisational governance.

Vegetarian diets have gained in popularity, especially among highly educated women, and are considered beneficial to health. Comparative studies assessing the diet of vegetarians against omnivores are rather limited and often provide ambivalent results. Therefore, this study examined the nutrient intake and nutritional quality of vegetarian and omnivorous diets in a group of 61 female students in Germany. Habitual dietary intake was evaluated using a validated graphical online food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Differences in nutrient intakes were analyzed by Mann–Whitney-U-Tests. Odds Ratios (OR) were calculated for vegetarians exceeding dietary reference values (DRV) compared to omnivores. The overall nutritional quality was assessed using the Healthy-Eating-Index-2015 (HEI-2015). In omnivores, intakes of total energy from saturated fatty acids (SFA), monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-n3-PUFA), cholesterol, sucrose, lactose, retinol, and cobalamin were significantly higher than in vegetarians. Significantly lower intakes were observed for fiber, magnesium, and beta-carotene. Significant OR were detected for total fat (OR = 0.29), SFA (OR = 0.04), beta-carotene (OR = 4.55), and cobalamin (OR = 0.32). HEI-2015 scores were higher for vegetarians than for omnivores (79 points versus 74 points) and significant differences were recorded for the HEI-2015 components dairy, seafood & plant proteins, fatty acids, added sugars, and saturated fatty acids.