With the table of over 586 food items, complied by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad, India now has its own complete food composition data base.
You can now make an informed choice about what you are eating in terms of nutritious and calorific value. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) released Indian Food Composition Tables (IFCT) for all the possible Indian foods ranging from Masala Dosa to Chicken Tikka or anything one can imagine.
With the table of over 586 food items, complied by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad, India now has its own complete food composition data base. The database would not only help the doctors to treat patients but also the food companies to help put right nutrient claims on products.
“The IFCT is a reference book for all kinds of nutritional evaluations including clinical practice for analysing the diets of patients and devising special diets for them. The comprehensive nutrient data bank will cater to the needs of researchers and policy makers for alleviating the nutritional deficiency and the associated disorders in the country,” said, JP Nadda, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare. “Policy makers and researchers will also get good insights into what people are consuming in India, however we also need to explore how this scientific document will be used by the common man,” he said.
The data will form a basis for development of dietary guidelines, framing of food regulations and food safety, consumer education and educational materials. Food industry can use this data for labelling and nutrient claims, product development and reformulation. IFCT will also give guidance in planning of institutional diets, sports nutrition and food service industry.
With this database, having precise and wide nutritional information of key foods consumed all across the country, the Union Health Ministry aims to cut down inappropriate costs and inefficient use of food resources.
The Indian national food sampling and analysis program was initiated by the ICMR in 2011 in order to bring out a totally new ICFT as an authoritative source of food composition data in India wherein key foods were prioritised and analysed for a comprehensive set of nutrients at the NIN.
Milestone
After 1971, this is the first expansive food composition data to be released having foods analysed from across the country. IFCT, popularly known as Nutritive Value of Indian Foods (NVIF) contains data which was sampled, analysed and categorized on a massive scale after 45 years of long gap. The data enables to monitor food and nutrient availability in the country. It serves as a handbook for the dieticians, planners, medical and health professionals and students of nutrition field.
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