Tuesday, March 18, 2014

New and updated fibre data now available for Australian foods

Current and accurate food composition data is the foundation of product claims, dietary modelling and health education programs. Data on soluble, insoluble and resistant starch content of Australian foods is scarce and many foods in the NUTTAB database don't currently have fibre results that reflect the current food supply. An industry lead initiative by Goodman Fielder, Ingredion and Grain Growers Limited (GrainGrowers) has resulted in updated and new comprehensive fibre data for 53 foods being released.

Current and accurate food composition data is the foundation of product claims, dietary modelling and health education programs, to name but a few uses. Data on soluble, insoluble and resistant starch content of Australian foods is scarce, so to date users of food composition data have had to rely on overseas sources which do not accurately reflect domestic cultivars, growing and manufacturing practices. In addition, many foods in the NUTTAB database don't currently have total fibre results reported or, where they do, the data does not reflect the current food supply.

An industry lead initiative by Goodman Fielder, Ingredion and GrainGrowers has addressed this, resulting in updated and new comprehensive fibre data for 53 foods now being released. Researchers, food companies, dietitians, health departments and others working with food composition data are now able to access this data from the Food Standards Australia New Zealand website on the NUTTAB home page. FSANZ hopes this initiative will stimulate more data like this being generated and released.

With the results of the recent National Nutrition Survey emerging, researchers will be able to use data such as this to more accurately assess the level of consumption of total fibre and fibre types in the Australian population. This will help to build the evidence base for future reviews of dietary targets and other population based interventions.

The NUTTAB data tables can be viewed in full at:


For information of the method refer to the Resistant Starch report, or contact Coral Colyer at Goodman Fielder (coral.colyer@goodmandfielder.com.au).

The Resistant Starch Report can be viewed in full at:
http://foodaust.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Hi_Maize-supplement_web.pdf