There are a few possible reasons you may see negative nutrient values in your output files.
Database maintenance
The way NCC maintains our database can, in very limited cases, lead to negative nutrient values in the output files when records are restored from an older version of NDSR into a newer version of NDSR. For the most part this is very rare, though we are aware of some instances where foods entered into prior versions of NDSR that are restored into NDSR 2025 or subsequent versions may result in negative non-heme iron values. If you notice negative nutrient values in output file 02 (food file) that are not due to any of the reasons below, please contact us at NDSRhelp@umn.edu and we can provide you with information so you can correct the negative nutrient values in your data set.
Food Formulations
When creating formulations for multi-ingredient foods in the database, we may subtract components such as water, sodium, or potassium. Therefore, when you look in output file 01 (component/ingredient file), you may see negative nutrient values for those components of a database food. For example, when making a fast food hamburger we may subtract sodium to match the nutrient value provided by the restaurant. The nutrient totals for the food will be correct (not negative) in output file 02 (food file). The negative nutrient values in output file 01 are intentional and do not need to be addressed.
User Recipes
If you create a User Recipe that includes a negative amount, you will see that negative amount, and therefore negative nutrients, in output file 01 (component/ingredient file). If the negative amount was intentional and is not causing negative nutrient values in output file 02 (food file), then this does not need to be addressed. If you are finding negative nutrient values in output file 02 for a User Recipe that you created, then you should correct the User Recipe, and reselect the corrected User Recipe into the record. If you are finding negative nutrient values in output file 02 for a User Recipe that NCC sent you for a new food request, please contact us at newfoods@umn.edu.
View/Paste Ingredients Feature
Another action that can result in negative nutrient values in output file 01 (component ingredient file) and output file 02 (food file) is using the View Ingredients feature to paste the ingredients of a mixed dish into an assembled food. If the pasted formulation includes a negative amount (that would typically only be seen in output file 01), it will now be present in both output file 01 and output file 02 because it is part of the assembled food. You will have to determine on a case-by-case basis if the negative value in the assembled food is correct, depending on the changes you made to the ingredients. You may consider summing the nutrient totals for the components of the food to ensure that the net nutrient totals are not negative.
Entering negative amounts in a record
If you enter a negative amount in a record, then you will see negative nutrient values in output file 02 (food file) and output file 01 (component/ingredient file). If the negative amount was entered into the record in error, then correct the negative amount in the record.
If the negative amount was entered intentionally, then you may not need to address it. For example, if your study is looking at daily nutrient totals (not conducting analysis at the food level), and you used a negative amount to subtract lettuce from an NDSR sandwich that includes lettuce, then your daily totals would be correct, and you would not need to make any changes. If you are intending to conduct analysis at the food level, then you may want to avoid entering negative amounts in the record.
Coming Soon: Heme & Non-Heme Iron, Percent Calories from Added Sugars, and Updated and New Foods in the 2025 version of the NCC Food and Nutrient Database and NDSR
We anticipate releasing the 2025 versions of the NCC Database and NDSR later this summer, and both now include heme and non-heme iron thanks to funding from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to support this work. In response to your requests, we have also added Percent Calories from Added Sugars.
We let you know in our last News Bite that baby foods and infant formulas have been updated for the 2025 versions of the NCC Database and NDSR. Meat alternative products from the following popular brands have also been updated:
Beyond
Gardein
Good Catch
Impossible
MorningStar
Quorn
Tofurky
Worthington Plant Powered
In addition to updates to the existing database, our team has added a variety of new foods including carnitas, barbacoa, kalbi, African peanut soup, aloo palak, candied ginger, Liberian check rice, massaman curry, mixed berries, stuffed pork chop, and Szechuan beef.
As a reminder, the latest version of NDSR is included as a component of your annual NDSR support. Any clients with up-to-date support at the time of the NDSR 2025 release will receive access to the updated software. Not sure of your support status or want to reinstate your support for another year? Send us an email at NDSRhelp@umn.edu to learn more!
For our NCC Food and Nutrient Database Licensing clients, those with an agreement for the 2025 files will receive an invoice in the coming weeks unless you have pre-paid. Files will be sent per your licensing agreement. Any questions can be directed to your licensing contact or NDSRhelp@umn.edu.
Using NDSR to Assess Ultra-Processed Food Intake
We have heard from some of you that you are interested in identifying ultra-processed foods in your dietary data so that you can assess level of intake of foods considered ultra-processed according to the NOVA classification system. While NDSR does not classify foods into NOVA classified categories, researchers can carry out this type of classification of foods entered into NDSR dietary recalls, records, or menus. One way to do this with your NDSR output data files is to identify the unique food IDs in output file 02 and then assign a classification level to each food based on resources such as the NCC Database Food Group ID and ingredient statements for restaurant and packaged foods. If you are interested in more details on this potential approach for classifying foods in your NDSR dietary data, see the corresponding FAQ on the NCC website.
Caution in Using Individual Nutrients (NTRNs) in NDSR
It has come to our attention recently that some NDSR users are adding or subtracting individual nutrients (NTRNs) to User Recipes in NDSR. This is being done to create User Recipes for commercial products that match the Nutrition Facts panel. We advise against doing this for the reason described in the paragraph that follows.
The NTRNs in the database were designed primarily for users who wish to create a User Recipe for a food for which nutrient values were determined by chemically analyzing the food in a laboratory setting. Beyond this intended use, the NTRNs have a limitation. The limitation is that NTRNS do not relate to any other nutrients or food components in the database. For example, if you add total protein to a User Recipe using the NTRN for protein, you are adding a specific amount of protein, but not adding calories or any of the individual amino acids associated with that protein. Another example is the lack of relationship between different forms or units for a nutrient. For example, if the NTRN for vitamin A in International Units is used to add vitamin A to a food, the other forms of this nutrient (e.g. vitamin A in Retinol Activity Equivalents and Retinol Equivalents) are not added.
Please note that if you are trying to adjust the micronutrients of a food, you may want to use the components for food fortification in NDSR, which we refer to as SFORs. For example, if you want to make a User Recipe for a food to better match a product label, you could start with an NDSR food that is a close match (e.g. Cheerios). Then add or subtract one of the components for food fortification, such as calcium or vitamin C. We also advise using SFORs with caution, especially when subtracting an amount, as the danger is a net negative value for the food. However, the SFORs will more appropriately maintain their relationships with other nutrients in the database as shown below.
The next image shows the difference between the SFOR calcium (first search result) and the NTRN calcium (second search result).
You are welcome to contact us with questions about the difference between using NTRNs and SFORs and what might be best for your work. Contact us at NDSRhelp@umn.edu.
Baby Foods and Infant Formulas Updated for NDSR 2025!
The NCC database team has been hard at work updating the baby foods and infant formulas that will be represented in NDSR 2025 and the 2025 database files! Over 200 new baby food products have been added to our database, providing new selections for multiple categories such as meals, finger foods, and fruit and veggie squeeze pouches. Baby food products that were in the database that are no longer available in the marketplace have been deactivated to make the searching process more efficient.
Users can expect to see updated selections for the following popular baby food brands:
Beech-Nut
Earth’s Best Organic
Gerber
Happy Family Brands (Happy Baby and Happy Tot)
Mum-Mum
Store Brand (e.g. Parent’s Choice)
Plum Organics
Infant formulas produced by Gerber and Mead Johnson have also been reviewed and updated to ensure nutrient accuracy and alignment with the current market.
These are only some of the updates that have been made for the upcoming version of NDSR! Stay tuned for more sneak previews in our next newsletter.
As a reminder, the latest version of NDSR is included as a component of your annual NDSR support. Any clients with up-to-date support at the time of the NDSR 2025 release will receive access to the updated software. Not sure of your support status or want to reinstate your support for another year? Send us an email at NDSRHelp@umn.edu to learn more!
Sample Data Analysis Plan Now Available on Website
Last year we added new pages to the NCC website to help orient you and your analyst to the content of NDSR Output Files. Now, we have added an example of an analysis plan that can help you think through how you might develop your own analysis plan. We encourage researchers to develop an analysis plan for their specific diet-related research questions because the plan will help you identify the specific NDSR output files you need and the variables you may need to create from the data in these files. This plan is shared courtesy of Lisa Chow, MD, MS at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Results from the study were published in this article:
We are conducting a Client Survey and would love to hear from you. If you haven’t already, please take our brief survey. We are interested in hearing from NDSR Users and those licensing our NCC Food and Nutrient Database Files as well. To those of you who have already responded, thank you very much!
No Price Increase for NDSR Software Licensing for July 2025-June 2026
Current prices for NDSR software licensing and annual support will remain the same through June 2026. The NCC price list is available here.
New Foods
The following new foods are available with this edition of the NCC News Bite. A New Foods Backup File is available for download on our website under New Food Backup Files, “May 2025”.
As you may know, we have sample 24-hour dietary recall collection procedures on our Dietary Assessment Resources page that you may use as a starting point for your protocol development. We recently added a Sample Food Record Form in response to requests from clients for this type of resource. Both are general guidelines and should be tailored to fit each particular study’s needs. We hope these resources help you as you plan your upcoming studies.
Updated: Guidelines for Resolving Missing Foods
The NCC Food and Nutrient Database is extensive, and our database scientists work steadfastly to add and update foods in our database for each release of NDSR. Nevertheless, due to the dynamic nature of the food marketplace and diversity of eating habits in the US, users may encounter “missing foods”, or foods reported by a study participant that cannot be found in the database. On our website are guidelines for resolving missing foods that may help you determine whether you want to resolve a missing food at your site or submit it to NCC as a New Food Request. Note that we’ve recently updated our suggested nutrient tolerances, including the suggestion that you compare nutrient values per serving instead of per 100 grams of product.
Did You Know? There are SAS files available to support analysis of NDSR output file data
There are a number of additional files provided with the NDSR program that facilitate creating data files for analysis using SAS or Excel. The Additional Files folder is located in C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\NCC\NDSR 20YY\Additional Files.
In the ‘SAS Programs’ folder you will find files that help you create SAS data sets for all output files and for all record types. These files include code for assigning formats and labels to the SAS variables, and defining the relationships within a set of Output Files. They can be used as templates and modified according to your specific needs.
For instructions on how to create and view output files, see the section titled “Creating an Output File” in Chapter 8 of the NDSR User Manual.
For more details about the SAS program files and other “NDSR Additional Files” see Appendix 18 of the NDSR User Manual.
New Training Cancellation Policy
A cancellation policy for those registering for our NDSR Training Workshops is now in place. We now require that you cancel or reschedule at least 12 days in advance in order to avoid being charged the full workshop cost. Please email NDSRtraining@umn.edu if you need to reschedule or cancel your registration. Our next training workshops are scheduled for April 7-8 and June 9-10 and are held from 9am to 5pm Central Time. Registration for the April training workshop will close on March 26th, which is also the deadline for cancellation.
NCC Food and Nutrient Database being used for the Nutrition for Precision Health, powered by the All of Us Research Program
We know that a number of our clients are working on the NIH funded Nutrition for Precision Health (NPH) program, a groundbreaking project that will develop algorithms that predict individual responses to food and dietary patterns. The NCC Food and Nutrient database is being licensed for use in the NPH program, particularly for planning the menus for the controlled diets and for providing additional nutrients to the dietary recall data being collected using the Automated Self-Administered 24 recall (ASA24) dietary assessment tool. We’re proud to be providing food composition data to support this important research program.
Did you know? List of foods unique to various eating traditions
NCC is committed to making NDSR a tool that supports equity and inclusion in nutrition research. As resources have allowed, we have steadily worked to expand foods unique to various eating traditions included in our database. Recently, we worked to add more foods unique to the eating traditions of Nigeria, Jamaica, Somalia, Haiti, and Hawaii. Are you wondering if our database includes foods eaten by members of your study population? We have updated our list of foods unique to various eating traditions on our website, which you can view here.
Are there foods unique to the eating traditions of your study participants that you’d like to see added to NDSR? If so, please email us at NDSRhelp@umn.edu, and we will add them to our list of food requests. You don’t need to wait for a client survey to let us know. If you have funding for a special project and would like to partner with us to add a large number of foods unique to a certain eating tradition to our database, let us know!
NDSR licensing and annual support costs
We know many of you are pressed financially due to limited NIH grant support. Some have asked if we could lower our prices in consideration of the lean times researchers are facing, and some have asked us to give discounts for certain projects. We wish we could, but we aren’t able to lower pricing at this time or for the foreseeable future, and out of fairness to all our clients we do not provide discounts.
NCC began 50 years ago with NIH funding, and some funding was continued to partially support maintenance and enhancement of NDSR. In 2014 that NIH funding was discontinued. Since then, we have relied exclusively on NDSR licensing and annual support, database licensing, and grants to support our work. We are proud of the work we are able to do with a small team, and we look forward to continuing to support nutrition research in the years to come. In order to ensure that we can do this, we must charge for use of NDSR and the NCC Food and Nutrient Database.
We hope this information is useful to you in understanding NDSR licensing and annual support costs.
NDSR Training
The next NDSR Training Workshops are scheduled for January 13th and 14th, 2025 and mid-February, 2025 (exact dates TBD). Trainings are held via Zoom from 9am-5pm CT both days. Register hereby January 1st if you are interested in the January training. The registration cutoff for the February training will be determined once the dates have been finalized. Space in the training workshops is limited and registration may close early if all seats fill before the cutoff date.
End-of-Year Holidays
NCC will be closed on December 24, 25, 26, and January 1st due to the University of Minnesota holidays. Please plan accordingly and check to see that you have access to any copies of NDSR you may want to use during that time. User Support services will not be available on those closure days to provide passwords or other troubleshooting support.
With NDSR 2024 released in July, we are now hard at work preparing the 2025 version of NDSR. One major area of work is adding heme iron and non-heme iron to NDSR 2025 and the 2025 NCC Food and Nutrient Database files. In recognition of the importance of being able to quantify intake of these forms of iron, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association provided funding to support this work. If you are interested in looking at heme and non-heme iron in your data entered into previous versions of NDSR, you will be able to restore backup files of your data into NDSR 2025 and then generate output files which will include these two new nutrients. (Just one more reason why your backup files are gold!)
Let us know about the nutrients or other food components you’d like added to NDSR (ndsrhelp@umn.edu), and consider a research partnership to support the addition of a specific nutrient or food component. The effort (and in turn cost) involved in adding novel nutrients and food components poses a challenge to their timely addition to NDSR, but this challenge may be addressed through research partnerships. One example of a successful partnership is the addition of lignans to NDSR 2019 in response to the needs of a study being conducted by researchers at Harvard University. Gluten was added to NDSR in 2017 through a similar type of partnership with a researcher at Columbia University. If you are interested in partnering to support the addition of a nutrient or food component to NDSR, please contact us.
Did You Know? NDSR has the NCC Food Group Serving Count System AND MyPlate Food Groups
NDSR has long included the NCC Food Group Serving Count System, which is a flexible system for calculating food group intakes. In this system there are 174 subgroups (e.g. sweetened soft drinks, citrus fruit, wine, etc.) that nest within nine main food groups. Values for each subgroup are available at the food, meal, and day levels in output files 07-09.
What you may not know is that NDSR has MyPlate food groups as well for recall, record, record-assisted recall, and menu record types. When we added the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) to NDSR 2022, we created output files that include not only HEI total and component scores, but also variables which make up the contributing dietary constituents used for calculating the HEI component and total scores, which includes the following MyPlate food groups: dairy (cup equivalents), total fruit (cup equivalents), whole fruit (cup equivalents), total vegetable (cup equivalents), greens and beans (cup equivalents), total protein (ounce equivalents), seafood and plant protein (ounce equivalents), whole grains (ounce equivalents), and refined grains (ounce equivalents). Values for each of these MyPlate food groups are provided at the meal and daily total levels in output files 22 and 23.
Wondering which food grouping system you should use? The answer to this question depends on the food categories of interest to you. For example, if you want to examine intake of sweet baked goods, sugar sweetened beverages, or alcoholic beverages, you’ll want to use the NCC Food Group Serving Count System output files. However, if you want to examine intake of a food group in MyPlate (e.g. servings of dairy, whole grains, refined grains, etc.) you’ll want to use the variables available in the NDSR HEI output files.
This year we celebrate NCC’s 50th Anniversary! With the help of current and former NCC employees, we’ve been working to document our rich history, with a summary available on our ‘About NCC’ page, and an in-depth version also available.
For a brief overview of our history, read on.
NCC was started by NIH in 1974 to support the MRFIT study and the Lipid Research Clinics. For these studies, a mainframe computer-based food coding and nutrient analysis system was created by NCC with the help from other experts, for in-house use. From there, a microcomputer system for 24-hour dietary recall collection was developed. Then in 1989, an MSDOS based software program was developed for distribution to researchers for use on their personal computers. In the mid-1990’s NCC embarked on developing a Microsoft Windows-based version of the program, which would eventually be called NDSR. Over this time, NCC’s food and nutrient database grew in number of foods and number of nutrients. NDSR is now considered a gold standard for dietary intake assessment, and the NCC Food and Nutrient Database has more foods (around 19,500) and nutrients (178 nutrients, nutrient ratios and other food components) than any other research quality food and nutrient database.
We are extremely proud to be fulfilling our mission to support nutrition research and health promotion by providing state-of-the-art software and databases for nutrition assessment. And, we are thankful to each of you for the support you provide through use of our products and services, and the input you provide on ways we can improve NDSR and our database. Full steam ahead together for another 50 years!
Pictured below: NCC Staff, NDSR 2024 Release Party
NDSR Training
The next NDSR Training Workshops are scheduled for November 18-19, 2024 and January 13-14, 2025. Trainings are held via Zoom from 9am-5pm CT both days. Register hereby November 6thif you are interested in the November training or by January 1st if you are interested in the January training. Space in the training workshops is limited and registration may close early if all seats fill before the cutoff date.
New Foods
The following new foods are available with this edition of the NCC News Bite. A New Foods Backup File is available for download on our website under New Food Backup Files, “October 2024”.
Celsius Sparkling Beverage
Egglife Egg White Wraps
Ensure Plus High Protein Drink – Vanilla
McDonald’s McGriddle – Chicken
Nature Valley Crispy Creamy Wafer Bar – Strawberry
We are excited to announce that we released NDSR 2024 on Monday, July 29th! The primary contact for accounts who are up to date on annual support should have received an email with a download link and instructions. If you didn’t receive an email, contact NDSRhelp@umn.edu, and we can check on your account status for you. To learn more about what is new in NDSR 2024, check out this article on our website. Wondering if you should upgrade to NDSR 2024? This article we published last year may help you decide.
Did You Know? NDSR Has New Customizable Meal and Food Fields
Researchers asked us for the ability to code additional details about meals and foods, and we have added them this year for NDSR 2024. In recalls, records, and record-assisted recall projects, you can include up to three customizable fields at the Meal level, which will appear on the Meal Information window, and up to ten customizable fields at the Food level, which will appear on a new tab within the Food Detail window. You can customize a descriptor for each field and import a list of response options that will then populate a dropdown menu. There is information in Chapters 3 and 4 of the User Manual with more details for how to use these fields, and we’ve also recorded two short videos that demonstrate how to set up the fields. If you are excited to use these customizable fields in your next project, share with other NDSR users on our LinkedIn Forum about how you plan to use them!
HEI-2020 and HEI-Toddlers-2020
The working group tasked with updating the HEI to align with the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans determined that no changes to the index were required aside from updating the name to ‘HEI 2020’. You can use NDSR HEI 2015 output files for HEI 2020 scores for dietary intake data and/or menus in NDSR. The HEI 2020 has the same index components and scoring criteria as the HEI 2015, so while the HEI output files and reports in NDSR are labeled as HEI 2015, they are the same as HEI 2020 scores.
The new Healthy Eating Index-Toddlers-2020 (HEI-Toddlers-2020) has the same index components as the HEI-2020 for children and adults 2 years of age and above, but the standards for calculating the maximum and minimum HEI index component scores are different for the Toddler HEI. For example, the adult standard for the component score of Total Fruits ranges from no fruit to greater than or equal to 0.8 cup equivalents per 1000 kcals, while the toddler standard ranges from no fruit to greater than or equal to 0.7 cup equivalents per 1000 kcals. Therefore, you should not use the index component scores or total scores in the NDSR HEI 2015 output files. However, you can use the contributing dietary constituents (e.g., ounce equivalents of whole grains, cup equivalents of dairy, etc.) found in the HEI output files to calculate component and total HEI-Toddlers-2020 scores.
Backup Files Are Gold!
Reminder: please remember to back up your NDSR projects to an additional storage medium outside of your local drive. Although NDSR protects data by saving record information to your hard drive or server as it is entered, NCC does not have access to that data and cannot retrieve your data in the event of a hard drive crash. Therefore, it is very important to create a NDSR backup and data management plan. Frequent backup of projects to multiple locations (e.g., hard drive, network drive, flash drive, cloud storage, etc.) is recommended. More information on backing up your NDSR projects is available on the NCC website.
Notes Search feature has been added. Now in the Record Search window, you can search the Header, Trailer, Meal, Food, or Supplement Notes fields for text.
Theme colors option now available. Background colors have been updated to be more consistent throughout the program. By selecting the ‘Use Theme Colors’ checkbox in the User Preferences, NDSR becomes compatible with Contrast Themes settings in Windows.
Output files now include a backup file. Now when you generate your output files, a backup file of the project will also be generated in the zipped output file. Backup and Output file names will also include the word ‘backup’ or ‘output’ to help you differentiate between the two.
2025 NCC Food and Nutrient Database Updates
Nutrients added:
Heme Iron
Non-heme Iron
% Calories from Added Sugars (by Total Sugars) [a calculated nutrient]
Baby foods were updated and include the addition of over 200 new baby food products and the deletion of products no longer in the marketplace. Baby food brands include: Beech-Nut, Earth’s Best Organic, Gerber, Happy Baby and Happy Tot, Mum-Mum, Plum Organics, and Store Brand (e.g. Parent’s Choice) foods.
Infant Formulas manufactured by Gerber and Mead Johnson (e.g. Enfamil) were updated.
Meat substitutes were updated to reflect the current product offerings for items such as plant-based chicken, fish, sausage, and deli slices. The update includes products from Beyond Meat, BOCA, Gardein, Good Catch, Impossible Foods, MorningStar Farms, Quorn, Tofurky, and Worthington.
Last month, NCC launched a Nutrition Coordinating Center Forum on LinkedIn Groups to provide a place for NDSR Users and NCC Food and Nutrient Database clients/users to ask each other questions and share resources. This is meant to facilitate user-to-user interaction. Technical help and licensing should continue to be sent to NDSRhelp@umn.edu.
In case you missed it, other NDSR users would love your input on these topics:
What are other researchers offering as financial incentives to participants for completing 24-hr dietary recalls?
How do you decide whether to build assembled foods or pick a database food for foods reported by individual participants?
When we send food homogenates of a full day’s menu to analytical labs such as Eurofins or Medallion, what analyses would yield the most appropriate results to compare with our NDSR calculated values?
Want to make sure you get notifications about new posts in the forum? Follow these steps:
On your Personal LinkedIn Page, click “Notifications” on the top menu bar.
Select “View Settings” under Manage Your Notifications.
Under Notifications you receive, click “Groups”.
Select “Groups Updates”.
Set Email sent on your primary email to ON.
Did You Know? Featuring: NDSR View and Paste Ingredients Function
Many of our users are familiar with the View Ingredients function that allows you to view gram amounts and up to five nutrients for each ingredient in many multi-ingredient foods in the database. What you may not know is that you can copy the ingredients list and paste the ingredients with amounts into an assembled food, and then edit ingredients and/or amounts to better match the food reported by a participant. For example, if a participant had a Big Mac but scraped off the sauce and the cheese, you could use the Paste Ingredients function to paste the ingredients of the Big Mac into an Assembled Food, and then delete the sauce and the cheese.
Please note that the Paste Ingredients function should be used with discretion, in a way that best aligns with your particular study. Removing high fat/energy ingredients such as sauce and cheese from a Big Mac may be important. Removing a tiny amount of onions from the Big Mac may or may not be important. Consider your research questions and the time burden before using this feature liberally.
Want more information about how to use the View and Paste Ingredient functions? See User Manual Chapter 4 and three short tutorial videos on line.
NCC Associate Director Dr. Abby Johnson at Nutrition 2024
NCC Associate Director Dr. Abby Johnson will be at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual Nutrition 2024 conference in Chicago, IL. If you are planning to attend, consider going to her presentation “Development of a Method to Identify the MyPlate Food Groups for Plant-Based Alternative Products” on Sunday, June 30th during the 2:30pm session in the Nutrition Translation and Food Science Oral Session 15.
NCC Presentations from the National Nutrient Databank Conference
NCC Director Dr. Lisa Harnack and Database Scientist Jenny Stevenson enjoyed seeing many NDSR Users at the National Nutrient Databank Conference last month in Ottawa, Canada. Summaries of the two oral presentations delivered by Dr. Lisa Harnack—”Plant-based Milk Alternative Products are Highly Heterogeneous in Nutrient Composition” and “Snack and Meal Replacement Bars Available in the U.S. Marketplace are Heterogeneous in Macronutrient Content” are shown below.
Plant-Based Milk Alternative Products are Highly Heterogeneous in Nutrient Composition
Abigail Johnson, PhD, RD, Jennifer Stevenson, Janet Pettit, Bhaskarani Jasthi, PhD, RD, LD, Lisa Harnack, DrPH, RD. University of Minnesota Nutrition Coordinating Center
Background: The variability of nutrients in plant-based milk alternative (PBMA) products is not well documented, leaving gaps in understanding how to assess nutrient intake from PBMA in nutrition research and surveillance.
Methods: In 2022 University of Minnesota Nutrition Coordinating Center (NCC) database scientists identified leading brands of PBMA products available in the U.S. market. A formulation was created for each product from which composition values for the 175 nutrient, nutrient ratios and other food components were calculated. An internally developed program was used to create the formulations, with product ingredient and nutrition facts panel information key to deriving formulations. We compared nutrient variability within and across plant-base types for calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin A as % Daily Values (%DV) per serving. We limited our analysis to products (total n=196) made with almond (n = 61), cashew (n = 3), coconut (n = 21), hemp (n = 10), oat (n = 51), pea (n = 9), rice (n = 10), or soy (n = 31).
Results: We identified high nutrient variability between and within categories of PBMAs. Nutrient ranges were wide. For calcium, oat milks had the widest range (0 to 45%DV). For vitamin D, soy milks had the widest range (0 to 30%DV). For vitamin A, both almond and soy milks ranged from 0 to 40%DV. Nutrients were not normally distributed within each plant base category, instead bimodal and trimodal distributions were observed.
Significance: The source of nutrient variability between and within PBMA categories may be due to differences in fortification, with distribution modes occurring at common nutrient reporting thresholds (e.g., 10% and 20% DV). For researchers aiming to collect dietary intake information from populations consuming PBMA, this high variability underscores the need to record specific brand and plant-base information.
Snack and Meal Replacement Bars Available in the U.S. Marketplace are Heterogeneous in Macronutrient
Lisa Harnack, DrPH, RD, Abigail Johnson, PhD, RD, Janet Pettit, Jennifer Stevenson, Kristine Schmitz, Bhaskarani Jasthi, PhD, RD, LD. University of Minnesota Nutrition Coordinating Center
Objective: Evaluate the macronutrient content variability of snack and meal replacement bars for the purpose of determining whether a representative macronutrient profile across this product category may be acceptable in developing food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) and their accompanying food and nutrient databases.
Materials and Methods: The 2022 version of the University of Minnesota Nutrition Coordinating Center Food and Nutrient Database was used to describe the macronutrient content of 588 snack and meal replacement bars sold by 33 leading brands in the U.S. The median, minimum, maximum, and interquartile range (IQR) values per bar were calculated across all products and by product type.
Results: Energy and macronutrient content varied widely across all products. For example, the added sugar content per bar ranged from 0-31 g with a median value of 6 g and IQR of 8 g. Macronutrient content differed between products described as ‘protein/meat’ or ‘meal replacement’ in comparison to those described as ‘child’/kid’ (n=45) or lacking a specific descriptor. For example, the median protein content per bar was 13 g for protein/meat and meal replacement bars versus 2 g and 4 g for child/kid bars and those lacking a specific descriptor. Macronutrient content varied substantially within these product categories as well. For example, protein/meat bars had variable protein (median 13 g; IQR 10 g), saturated fat (median 3 g DV; IQR 3 g) and added sugar (median 4 g; IQR 7) content.
Significance: When developing a FFQ and accompanying food and nutrient database for use with a population where snack or meal replacement bar consumption is common, consideration should be given to asking for the specific brand of snack or meal replacement bar typically eaten. Alternatively, the type of bar (protein, meal replacement, or other type) could be queried with representative nutrient values included in the FFQ database.
Introducing the Nutrition Coordinating Center Forum
We know the users of NDSR and the NCC Database have knowledge and valuable experience to share. That’s why we’re taking our community-building to a new level with the introduction of the Nutrition Coordinating Center Forum, a LinkedIn group where users can virtually meet and learn from one another’s experiences with the NDSR software and NCC Database files. The NCC Forum is an additional channel we are hosting to help foster connection within our community. It is NOT replacing the NCC website, ndsrhelp@umn.edu, or NCC News Bites.
The NCC forum is powered by you, our community. Please help make it a valuable place to share knowledge, skills, experience, and tips with one another through ongoing discussion.
For example, the NCC forum is a great place to:
Chat with the community and share your NDSR experiences.
Search past discussions for ideas and insights.
Discuss features, protocols, and analysis plans.
You will need to create a LinkedIn account, if you do not already have one, to view or add posts and replies to the NCC Forum.
All requests to join and all new posts require NCC approval, which may take up to 1 business day.
Your participation counts – join today to connect, share, and learn.
Fish Tacos, Jimmy John’s and more coming in NDSR 2024
Our database team has been working hard, as they do every year, to update the NCC Food and Nutrient Database that will be a part of NDSR 2024. To highlight some of the many changes:
Fish tacos with cabbage have been added, and taco options restructured
Jimmy John’s has been added to our Fast Food restaurants
More foods unique to Hawaiian eating traditions have been added
Artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes have been updated
Crackers have been updated
Aguas frescas flavors have been expanded based on specific requests submitted through our client survey
Arugula has been added as a variable ingredient option in salads
Thousands of small yet important changes to nutrient values for foods have been made based on recent data from the USDA Foundation Foods Database and the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS) 2019-2020
We are excited to release the new database with NDSR 2024 this summer.
NCC at the National Nutrient Databank Conference
NCC Director Dr. Lisa Harnack, and Database Scientist Jenny Stevenson will be representing NCC at the National Nutrient Databank Conference from May 21-23, 2024 in Ottawa, Canada and would welcome the opportunity to talk with you while you are there. Dr. Harnack will also be giving two oral presentations—”Plant-based milk alternative products are highly heterogeneous in nutrient composition” and “Snack and Meal Replacement Bars Available in the U.S. Marketplace are Heterogeneous in Macronutrient Content”.
In Memory of Mary Stevens
Those of you who have been in touch with NCC for a while may remember Mary Stevens who was the NCC Service Center Manager until she retired in 2011. We are sad to share that she passed away on February 11th and a funeral was held in March. Her obituary is available at this link. As Service Center Manager Mary facilitated dietary data collection and quality assurance work for countless studies, including complex important studies such as the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos, INTERMAP, and the Primary Prevention of Obesity in North American Indians Study (Pathways). Mary put her all into supporting high quality dietary intake assessment for every project. She had the unique ability to work collaboratively to figure out solutions to practically any dietary assessment need or problem that arose. Also, she was a delightful person to work with. We remember Mary and honor all of her contributions to supporting nutrition research.
Price Increases Coming July 2024
Effective July 1, 2024, licensing and annual support fees will increase by 2% in order to keep pace, in part, with current inflationary increases in expenses. The new pricing for NDSR licensing is as follows:
NDSR License – Initial Copy: $6,600 (increase of $120)
NDSR License – Additional Copy: $4,285 (increase of $85)
Annual Support – Initial Copy: $4,400 (increase of $85)
Annual Support – Additional Copy: $700 (increase of $15)
Note that a reinstatement fee applies for returning clients who have not maintained annual support.
