Recipe/Nutritional Values/Ingredient Composition Databases
For the recipe analysis to work correctly, Food composition databases are required. These Food Composition Databases contain for any ingredients the corresponding micro- and macro-nutritional values. These nutritional values are used to get the best fit for the product nutritional values based on the ordered list of product ingredients.
The product ingredient list is parsed and matched against the ingredients taxonomy. This in turn will provide the links to the ingredient entry in the food composition database.
Purpose
It is useful to have multiple composition databases, which can be used to determine the recipe.
- Better ingredient coverage - most composition databases are limited to the ingredients that are used in the region of other authority (US, EU, India, Brazil, etc.);
- Comparisons - the nutritional data might vary per region/locality, which can influence the recipes;
- Ingredient variants - it might be necessary to have more specific variants of an ingredient, like cooked, dried, etc.
Food Composition Databases
The available Food Composition Databases are listed here. Not all databases are usable to OFF, due to restricted licences.
- BundeslebensmittelschlĆ¼ssel does not have a public license (ref)
- Ciqual
- Indian FCT, see also this page for other formats
- Japan ā Standard Tables of Food Composition, 8th edition, Supplement 2023 (most recent)
- Tabela Brasileira de ComposiĆ§Ć£o de Alimentos
- USDA - public, downloadable
- West Africa FCT 2019
There are more, but it is unclear what is added eventually, but this set might cover some regional differences.
Missing food composition
The available public Food Composition Databases are not exhaustive: some ingredients are missing, especially those used in industrial food processing.
Some examples are listed here: