The Composition of Foods

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) maintains the UK Nutrient Databank, which contains extensive information on the nutrient content of foods commonly consumed in the UK. The McCance and Widdowson's The Composition of Foods (CoF) book series, i.e. the 6th Summary Edition and supplement publications, contains nutrient composition data based on information from this databank. The 6th summary edition is the latest publication (2002) and provides information on the nutrition content of over 1,200 foods, including levels of fat, sodium, fibre, and carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. This includes nutrition information on key foods, such as milk, cheese, bread and meat, as well as entries for many foods that have become popular in recent years. There are currently nine supplements on specific food groups and a supplement on fatty acids.

This McCance and Widdowson's The Composition of Foods integrated dataset (CoF IDS) brings together all the data from the CoF series into a single electronic file with a single entry for each food (based on the most up-to-date published values). Foods calculated by recipe or that are calculated based on another food have been recalculated based on the most recent data for ingredients. This version of the CoF IDS therefore contains a reorganisation of existing data rather than new values. The Agency nevertheless intends to update the dataset as new analytical information becomes available from the Agency’s Nutrient Analysis Programme, and to publish these revised versions here.

The CoF IDS lists analytical nutrient data for 3423 foods. The data are divided across 16 worksheets and includes nutrient data for macronutrients, vitamins, vitamin fractions, minerals, fatty acid fractions, phytosterols, and organic acids, as well as providing recalculated values for a selection of foods in the format required for nutrition labelling. For more information on data within the CoF IDS, please see the CoF IDS User Document below.

Please note that the data within the CoF IDS are available to download free of charge for purposes of non-commercial research, private study (including schoolwork) or for use in recipe analysis independent of commercial software packages. Users are advised that these data are subject to Crown copyright and must comply with the terms set out in the attached document entitled Terms and Conditions for use.

If formally presented, the data must be acknowledged as Crown copyright and the source identified as the Food Standards Agency. The following statement should be included: © Crown copyright material is reproduced with permission of the Controller of HMSO.

Any other form of re-use of this food composition data, either within, or to create, another product (e.g. commercial software package, recipe analysis tools freely accessible on the web or in members’ areas of websites) requires a Click-Use Value Added Licence, which can be purchased from the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI).

Users are reminded that this dataset does not include any recent analytical data and only contains data from the CoF series. Therefore analytical nutrient data for the most recently analysed foods dates back to 2002.

Results of two recent FSA analytical surveys, the Nutrient Analysis catch-up project (September 2004) and the Nutrient analysis of pasta and pasta sauces (September 2004) can be found at the links below.

In addition the analytical reports from the Nutrient Survey of Flours and Grains (September 2005 LBC/FA/2004/151) and the Nutrient Survey of Breakfast Cereals (June 2004 LGC/FA30/2004/116) are available from the:

Food Standards Agency library
email: infocentre@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk
tel: 020 7276 8181.