Food Composition and Analysis
Food composition and analysis is the area of food science concerned with determining what foods are made of — their energy, macronutrients, vitamins, minerals, bioactive compounds, and contaminants — and with organising those values so that they can be used in nutrition, regulation, and research. It links the analytical chemistry of foods to the compiled databases that nutrition science depends on.
Definition
Food composition and analysis is the systematic measurement, compilation, and interpretation of the chemical constituents of foods — nutrients, non-nutrient components, and contaminants — and their representation in databases used for dietary assessment, labelling, and food regulation.
Scope
This area orients five topics: the food composition tables and databases that store and harmonise nutrient values; the analytical methods used to measure nutrients and components; the natural and processing-related variability that makes single values approximate; the labelling and composition claims that translate composition into consumer-facing information; and the detection of food authenticity problems and adulteration. It is a reference overview, not a manual for laboratory practice or dietary prescription.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- What constituents does a given food contain, and in what amounts?
- How are nutrient values measured, compiled, and harmonised across laboratories and countries?
- How much do composition values vary with cultivar, origin, season, and processing?
- How is composition communicated to consumers and verified against claims and labels?
- How can analytical evidence reveal that a food is mislabelled, substituted, or adulterated?
Key concepts
- Proximate composition (water, protein, fat, carbohydrate, ash)
- Nutrient databases and reference values
- Analytical method validation and traceability
- Data harmonisation and value documentation
- Natural and processing-related variability
- Nutrient retention and yield factors
- Authenticity, traceability, and adulteration
Clinical relevance
Composition data underpin dietary assessment, food labelling, and public-health nutrition surveillance, so the quality and provenance of these values shape how nutrient intakes are estimated and interpreted. This area describes how compositional knowledge is generated and curated; it is not a basis for individual diagnostic or dietary decisions.
Evidence & guidelines
International guidance frameworks — notably the FAO/INFOODS programme and, in Europe, the EuroFIR network — set conventions for producing, documenting, and harmonising composition values, building on the foundational guidelines of Greenfield and Southgate. These conventions cover sampling, analytical method choice, value aggregation, and metadata so that compiled values are comparable and traceable.
History
Systematic food composition work dates to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when laboratories began tabulating proximate composition for dietary planning. Through the twentieth century national food tables proliferated, and the discipline matured with international efforts — FAO/INFOODS from the 1980s and EuroFIR from the 2000s — to standardise how values are produced, documented, and shared.
Key figures
- Heather Greenfield
- David A. T. Southgate
- Paul Finglas
Related topics
Seminal works
- greenfield-southgate-1992
- southgate-1988
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between food composition and food analysis?
- Food analysis is the laboratory measurement of constituents in a sample, while food composition refers to the compiled, representative values — typically stored in tables and databases — that summarise those measurements for use in nutrition and regulation.
- Why are food composition values described as approximate?
- A tabulated value usually represents an average across samples, but the true content of any individual food varies with cultivar, origin, season, storage, and processing, so published values are best treated as representative estimates rather than exact figures.