Date   : Sat, 23 Feb 1985 13:40:00 EST
From   : "John C. Klensin" <Klensin@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA>
Subject: Nutrient composition databases

Well, there are dozens, but few that can be accessed without some local
cooperation.  In addition, much of the action during the last few years
has been in getting this kind of data in a form so that it can be
distributed on diskettes, with accessing software, for Apple-sized
machines.  A directory of many of those databases, and whether/how they
are accessible from the outside, has been produced annually for the last
few years by Dr.  Loretta Hoover at the University of Missouri at
Columbus.  You may want to reach them and get a copy of the directory
(if you have problems tracking down an address or number, send me mail
and I will send it to you when I next go into the office).

Most of the data available in this country is derived from USDA data
(mostly the so-called Handbook 8) and from data prepared by the FDA.
While those data are public, neither of those organizations have chosen
to make them available via networks (although some of them are available
in machine-readable form).  Most of the databases listed by Hoover are
USDA data, plus some local analyses (of varying quality), plus software;
their vendors are essentially acting as value-added retailers of the
public data.

You should be especially careful where trace nutrients are concerned.
In addition to being analytically tricky, the values of several of them
seem to depend heavily on local growing or feeding conditions, so the
ranges associated with the values (rarely contained in the available
tables) can be astronomical.

We have a project running (under the name "INFOODS") with the charge of
trying to bring some sense out of this madness and of making sure that,
a few years down the line, there are clear "yes" answers to inquiries
like yours from anywhere in the world.  If you can give me a surface
mail address and some information about your background and interests in
this type of information, and are interested, I will get you onto the
newsletter mailing list.

John Klensin
 Chair, Committee on Information Systems
 INFOODS Secretariat
  (INFOODS @ MIT-Multics)
  (Room 20A-226, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts
Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139.  617/253-3780).