Food Nomenclature, Terminology - Standards and Harmonization for Food Composition Databases and Food Trade

Oct 1, 2026

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Discusses how food composition information is produced and why cohesive frameworks and management guidelines are often lacking across national, regional, and international contexts. Presents INFOODS as an UNU/FAO initiative addressing technical issues, emphasizing food identification as fundamental to harmonization. Compares prominent approaches including Langual and the INFOODS Nomenclature and Terminology System, and outlines evaluation criteria and survey methodology using regional and international experiences, including applications in the New Zealand Food Composition Data System.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time10 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Food Identification and Technical Harmonization

Langual and the INFOODS System

Critical Analysis in New Zealand

Survey of Regional Data Center Coordinators

# Food Nomenclature,Terminology:Standards and Harmonization for Food CompositionDatabases and Food Trade B.A.BURLINGAME INFOODS Coordinator and Nutrition Program Leader,New Zealand Institute for Crop and FoodResearch,Palmerston North,New Zealand Keywordsfood composition,nomenclature,standards,harmonization ## Introduction Food composition activities are being undertaken by avariety of agencies,programs and people,for an ever-increasing number of reasons,sometimes without acohesive framework or proper management guidelines.The result is that poor information is produced,rather thanvaluable information that could be widely utilized.Thisproblem has national,regional and internationalimplications,and it is being dealt with by INFOODS,theInternational Network of Food Data Systems.It is a jointUNU/FAO project.Among the requirements for solvingthe problems is the need to establish,quantify and resolvethe technical issues.Some of the technical issues areidentification of components;sampling,sample handlingand sample documentation procedures;methodologicalissues;data quality issues;and data interchange issues.Fundamental among the technical issues is foodidentification. With food identification,the technical harmonizationissues have proved difficult.A number of solutions havebeen recommended over the ycars.These include systemsdeveloped in the 1970's and 1980's,such as theInternational Feed Information Center system(Harris et al.1980),Eurocode 2(Arab et al.1987),the Factored FoodVocabulary system(McCann et al.1988),and the CoDatasystem for nutritional epidemiology(Butrum 1985).These proposed solutions relied on words,alphanumericcodes,position-specific facets,etc.,and they did offer anapproach to standardizing the way foods are identified. Only two of the proposed food identification systemspresented to the international food composition communityhave gained acceptance:Langual(Pennington and Butrum1991)and The INFOODS Nomenclature and TerminologySystem(The INFOODS System)(Truswell et al.1991).Langual's system was developed to meet the regulatoryresponsibilities of the US Food and Drug Administration(Pennington and Hendricks 1992).It was a rigidhierarchical food description language,relying onalphanumeric codes,not text,within the facets,andthesauri to provide the translations(Hendricks 1992).This approach appealed to the EUROFOODS regionalgroup,because it was suited for the multiplicity oflanguages on the European continent. A EuropeanLangual Working Group was established in the early1990’s,to communicate needs to the US LangualCommittee where the computer programs were housed.Langual has been incorporated into the country databasesin France,Denmark,Sweden,and Slovakia. The INFOODS System is text based and relies on amultifaceted descriptor approach.It is open-ended withoutstandardized terms,allowing national data generators todescribe foods in their own words. The systemdistinguishes betwecn single and mixed(multiple ingredient)foods with different facets.The INFOODSSystem is used in New Zealand,the South Pacific,severalASEAN countries,at least two African countries and tenLatin American countries.It is also being incorporatedinto the working systems in Middle Asia and South Asia. Critical analysis of Langual and The INFOODS systemNew Zealand's Food Composition Data System,managed in Advanced Revelation⑧relational databasemanagement systems software(ARev),on a Pentium⑧fileserver with multi-user access,was adapted to allowincorporation of Langual and The INFOODSNomenclature Systems. Langual was evaluated byobtaining coding for the entire finfish section of the NewZealand Food Composition Database.The data file wassubmitted by electronic mail to the United States Food andDrug Administration(FDA). Langual coding wasundertaken by the Technical Information Specialist of theFDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.Thecoding was prepared,printed and mailed back to NewZealand.A field was created in ARev to allo

FAQs

Why is a cohesive framework needed for food composition activities?

Food composition efforts are undertaken for many reasons and sometimes without unified frameworks or proper management guidance, leading to poor information rather than valuable, widely usable data.

Which technical issues must be resolved for food data systems to work effectively?

Key issues include component identification, sampling and sample handling with documentation procedures, methodological concerns, data quality, and data interchange, with food identification considered fundamental.

How do Langual and the INFOODS system differ in their approach to describing foods?

Langual is a rigid hierarchical language using alphanumeric codes and relies on facets and thesauri for translations, while the INFOODS system is text-based, multifaceted, and open-ended, allowing foods to be described in national terms.

Oct 1, 2026

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