1. Which file contains total daily nutrient intake estimates from foods (e.g., mg of calcium from all foods eaten over a day)?
ANSWER: FILE 04
2. Which file contains total daily nutrient intake estimates from dietary supplements (e.g., mg of calcium from all dietary supplements taken over a day)?
ANSWER: FILE 12
3. Which file contains Healthy Eating Index (HEI) total and index component scores at the daily intake level?
ANSWER: FILE 23
4. Which file contains total daily MyPlate Food Group servings (e.g., dairy servings in cup equivalents)?
ANSWER: FILE 23 for Total Fruit, Whole Fruit, Total Vegetables, Greens and Beans, Dairy, Total Protein Foods, Seafood and Plant Proteins, Whole Grains, and Refined Grains. File 04 for Total Grains.
5. Which file contains total daily NCC food group serving counts (e.g., Sweetened Soft Drinks servings/day)
ANSWER: FILE 09
6. Should I use the MyPlate Food Group Servings or the NCC Food Serving Counts for doing food group analysis?
ANSWER: This will depend on the food groups of interest for your research question:
If MyPlate food groups and subgroups are of interest, use MyPlate Food Group Servings available in the HEI output (files 22 and 23) and Total Daily Nutrient Intake (File 04) files . These files include the following MyPlate food groups and subgroups:
- Total Fruit servings in cup equivalents
- Whole Fruit servings in cup equivalents
- Total Vegetable servings in cup equivalents
- Greens and Beans servings in cup equivalents
- Dairy servings in cup equivalents
- Total Protein Food servings in ounce equivalents
- Seafood and Plant Protein servings in ounce equivalents
- Whole Grain servings in ounce equivalents
- Refined Grain servings in ounce equivalents
- Total Grain servings in ounce equivalents
Total daily estimates of all of the MyPlate food group servings except Total Grain are provided in File 23. MyPlate food group servings per meal are provided in File 22. Additionally, Total Grain servings in ounce equivalents, Whole Grain servings in ounce equivalents, and Refined Grain servings in ounce equivalents are available at the day, meal, and food levels in output files 01-04.
The NCC Food Group Serving Count System output files may be useful for examining food groups not included in MyPlate. For example, estimating servings of sugar sweetened beverages, alcoholic beverages, coffee, tea, sweet baked goods, yogurt, cheese, etc. is possible using the NCC Food Serving Counts available in these output files. Note that with the NCC Food Serving Count System foods in NDSR are assigned values for 174 subgroups that fit within 9 major food categories (see NDSR User Manual, Appendix 10, Food Grouping). It is specifically designed to offer a high level of flexibility to address multiple research investigations related to food group and dietary pattern analysis. Total daily estimates of NCC Food Serving Counts are provided in File 09. NCC Food Serving Counts per food and per meal are provided in Files 07and 08, respectively.
7. How do I calculate nutrient intake from foods and dietary supplements combined (e.g., mg of calcium from foods eaten and dietary supplements taken over a day)?
ANSWER: See the instructions on this webpage
8. Which file contains information about eating occasions such as meal name and mealtimes?
ANSWER: FILE 03
9. How are the Meal (file 03), Food (file 02), and Component Ingredient (file 01) files linked?
ANSWER: This video explains the linkages using the file ID numbers
10. Why are some foods in the Food file (file 02) repeated in the Component/Ingredient file (file 01) and others not?
ANSWER: This video explains why some foods may be the same in these two files while others are not.
11. What file contains the percent RDA/AI values?
ANSWER: Percent RDA/AI Values are not available in NDSR Output files. They are available in the RDA/AI Report which can be saved as a pdf document or printed. See Chapter 10, NDSR Reports in the NDSR User Manual for information on how to select, save, and print the RDA/AI Report.
12. How can I tell what version of NDSR was used to collect/enter Recall, Record and Record-Assisted Recall records and to generate output files for these records?
ANSWER: FILE 04 contains the following variables for Recall, Record, and Record-Assisted Recall Records: 1) data collected in NDSR software version and 2) data generated in NDSR software version.
*Additional NDSR Output File and Data Analysis FAQs can be found here.