It may be that the Include in Food Search checkbox on the Header tab of the user recipe has not been selected. Return to the project containing the user recipe and look on the recipe Header. Select the Include in Food Search checkbox. When you type the name of the user recipe in the Search by pane it should now appear.
 
If the Include in Food Search checkbox is checked and the user recipe still does not appear, select the User Recipe radio button followed by the Search button in the Food Search window. If you have more than one user-recipe project, select the appropriate project. Any user recipes which contain incomplete or missing foods will not be displayed.

The decision to take advantage of the user-recipe feature should be made prior to the start of a study. Are there special recipes your study population will be consuming that are not in the NCC database? Will your study participants be provided with recipes as an intervention strategy? Are you doing menu analysis for which recipes are available? These examples illustrate instances where user recipes can be created prior to study start-up, making them available for immediate insertion into intake records and menus.
 
The user recipe feature can also be a useful tool for data entry of missing or new foods. When you receive a resolution from NCC that has several ingredients and is a commonly consumed food, enter the resolution as a user recipe and it will be available for use and reuse in subsequent intake records.
 
Note: Any user recipes that are created to match specific nutrient data should be reviewed with each new release of the NCC database.

First, make sure you backup all NDSR data and store it in a safe place. Next, email ndsrhelp@umn.edu to unregister the license, a process similar to getting a password. Uninstall NDSR on your old computer, then install it on your new computer and contact NCC for a new password.
 
See the Chapter 2, Installation in the NDSR User Manual.

Although there is not an official limit to the number of records in a project, NCC recommends that users limit the project size to approximately 500 records, this is especially true if records include DSAM data.

When NDSR is installed, a Foods File is downloaded to your computer (along with a series of files found in an Additional Files folder). The Additional Files folder is discussed in Appendix 18 of the NDSR User Manual.
 
For Windows 10 users, the location is C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\NCC\NDSR XXXX\Additional Files\Database Documentation\FoodsXXXX.
 
The Program Data folder in Windows 10 is often hidden. To unhide the folder, go to Folder and Search Options > Folder Options > View tab and select the Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives radio button.
 
The Foods File provides a complete list of NDSR food descriptions, Food IDs, food group assignments and serving count sizes.

In the Methods section of your manuscript please include one of the following statements.

• • Citation for NDSR single version:
    Dietary intake data were collected and analyzed using Nutrition Data System for Research software version _____, (date) developed by the Nutrition Coordinating Center (NCC), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Citation for NDSR multiple versions:
    To reflect the marketplace throughout the study, dietary intake data were collected using Nutrition Data System for Research software versions _____ and _____, developed by the Nutrition Coordinating Center (NCC), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. Final calculations were completed using NDSR version _____, (date).

   
  In the References section of your manuscript these journal articles may be used to refer to the nutrient database that NDSR accesses.

  • Schakel SF. Maintaining a nutrient database in a changing marketplace: Keeping pace with changing food products – A research perspective. J Food Comp and Anal. 2001;14:315-322.
  • Schakel SF, Buzzard IM, Gebhardt SE. Procedures for estimating nutrient values for food composition databases. J Food Comp and Anal. 1997;10:102-114.
  • Schakel SF, Sievert YA, Buzzard IM. Sources of data for developing and maintaining a nutrient database. J Am Diet Assoc. 1988;88:1268-1271.

Researchers have used NDSR for studies in countries outside the U.S. Special procedures are recommended, because the nutrient composition values for foods in NDSR are based on U.S. foods.
 
Nutrient values for some food items may be representative of those available in other countries (e.g., nutrient content of an apple in the U.S. and an apple available in another country may be comparable). However, values are likely not comparable for many foods due to different food fortification practices across countries, use of different cultivars of plants, and differences in food ingredient and preparation practices. An additional issue is that some food descriptors vary across countries. For example, in the U.S. ‘biscuit’ refers to a fat-rich leavened baked good generally served with a meal. In contrast, in many other countries ‘bisquit’ refers to a sugar-sweetened baked good served as a snack or dessert.

One of the features of NDSR that makes it the choice of researchers is the small number of missing nutrient values for foods in the database. This is an essential feature because missing nutrient values for foods are ultimately calculated as zeros in nutrient intake estimates.
 
To minimize the number of missing values, NCC uses several standardized procedures to impute or logically calculate an estimation. These procedures are described in Procedures for estimating nutrient values for food composition databases. To summarize, one of the following procedures is employed to estimate a nutrient value for a food when an analytic value is not available from the USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory or cannot be found in the literature:

• Value from a different but similar food is used. (e.g., missing nutrient for wild duck may be judged to be the same as known nutrient in domestic duck)
• Value for another form of the same food is calculated (e.g., convert from raw to cooked values using retention factors)
• Calculate values from other components in the same food (e.g., estimate beta-carotene from Vitamin A)
• Calculate value from household recipes or commercial food product formulations for multicomponent foods (e.g., Manufacturers may provide ingredient listing and macronutrient composition of product. From the macro-nutrients, NCC database scientists estimate the amount of each ingredient. Based on the estimated amounts of the ingredients, micro-nutrients can be imputed for the product.)

Missing values are allowed in the database for foods that are consumed in very small quantities, such as spices, or where there are no data to indicate whether the nutrient exists in the food.
 
Some nutrients have no missing values, but a high percentage of imputed values. An example is Vitamin A which is calculated from provitamin A carotenoids and retinol.

In future versions of the database, missing and estimated values will be replaced by analytic values as they become available.

The NCC Food and Nutrient Database includes more foods and nutrients than other research quality U.S. databases (comparison table).