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.