Nutrient values in the NCC Food and Nutrient Database for brand name foods do not precisely match the information on product Nutrition Facts panels for a number of reasons. One reason is that values in the database are not rounded to the nearest whole number as is allowed on the Nutrition Facts panel. Another reason is the database values may not reflect recent changes in the marketplace. For example, if General Mills reformulates Cheerios® today, the nutrient values in the current database may no longer match those on the product label. Discrepancies between database and Nutrition Facts panel values may be due to use of the nutrient composition of representative foods for some brand name product categories for which the nutrient composition across brands is similar.
As an example, although the database includes several brands of pretzel twists, the nutrient values assigned to each are based on a representative pretzel twist. It is important to note that use of a representative food is only done when variation in nutrient content across brands of a product is minimal.