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The Canadian Nutrient File Data was prepared by the Research Division and Biostatistics and Computer Applications Division, Food Directorate, Health Protection Branch, Health Canada. The use of trade, firm or corporation names in this database is for information and convenience of the user. Such use does not constitute an official endorsement or approval by Health Canada of any product or service to the exclusion of others that may be suitable. Introduction to the Canadian Nutrient Files The Canadian Nutrient File (CNF) is a computerized, bilingual food composition database containing average values for nutrients in foods available in Canada. Much of the data in the CNF have been derived from the comprehensive United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) compilation of analytical data, Agricultural Handbook No. 8, Composition of Foods: Raw, Processed, Prepared, Sections 1-21, (16-36) plus four Supplements (37-40). Modification for Canadian levels of fortification and regulatory standards, along with addition of Canadian-only foods, as well as - where appropriate - some brand name foods, form this standard Canadian resource. This is the eighth edition of the Canadian Nutrient File (1997) and contains data on 4,668 food items for up to 115 food components. CyberSoft performed the required calculations to derive additional entries for household serving sizes for these original entrees. Changes to the data include those adopted by USDA since 1991, addition or deletion of foods, and/or nutrients as data became available. Significant updates were made to the following food groups: Fats & Oils - Canadian Margarines Poultry - Canadian Chicken Cuts Breakfast cereals Pork - Canadian Pork Cuts Baked Products Snacks and Sweets Traditionally, the food descriptions were limited to generic or composite foods representative of the national average. However, there has been an expansion of data for brand name products particularly among the Breakfast cereals, Baby Foods, and Margarines. Limitations to the CNF Data Every food item may not contain a complete nutrient data set. Where data is unavailable for a particular nutrient on the database, it is a missing value and not a true zero. Software developers and others personalizing the database must learn to understand account for the missing values. Six-Digit Canadian Food Code
Descriptive information about the food items is included in the CNF database is in both French and English. The food names in the CNF are 60 characters in length. (CyberSoft edited these food names to a maximum of 49 characters. Additional food name information was placed in the "Comment" field.) This limitation (in the CNF database) leads to frequent use of abbreviations. A systematic hierarchy is utilized for recording common food names. Elements which may be included are Product type, Breed, Part, Physical State, Shape or Form, Cooking Method, Preservation Method, and/or Brand name. For example: Density or Specific Gravity - The CNF data has been changed to provide the density or specific gravity of the edible portion of homogeneous foods. Most of these densities are calculated from the weight of a 2.54 cm cube (one inch cube). These densities are most commonly applied by those users employing food models. For foods with no refuse, the factor can be used directly; for foods with refuse, the percent refuse must be subtracted from the model volume before applying the factor. Portion Size Conversion Factors - The conversion factors are food-specific multipliers by which the nutrient values for each food may be multiplied to give the nutrients in described portions. They should not be considered as "average" or "typical" serving sizes. Multiplying by the factors provides the nutrients in the edible portions described in the CNF file (e.g., 1 fruit; 100 ml puree). Local markets must always be checked for available foods and the selection of values to be used in calculations must be based on such local information. The volume portions have been derived from the cup measures and suffer from the same strictures as described in USDA Handbook No. 456, Appendix B (2) as follows: Cup weights - Cup weights shown in the CNF data may or may not be adequate for determining weights of larger measures such as 1 quart or more. Although specific only for 1 cup, the weights are believed reasonably suitable for calculating nutrients in serving portions that are in the range of from less than 1 cup up to 2 cups. Conversion Factors for Volume Weights - In some cases conversion factors are provided for 5 and 15 ml volume weights and have been derived independently from teaspoon and tablespoon amounts (not by multiplying by 0.05 and 0.15) to conform with USDA Handbook No. 456, Appendix B (2) as follows: "For those foods commonly used in units of 1 tablespoon or 1 teaspoon, weights shown are for the foods measured in those units. Weights obtained in this manner are usually less than the weights derived for them by dividing the weight per cup by 16 (the number of tablespoons in 1 cup) or by 48 (the number of teaspoons in 1 cup). " Edible Cooked Food - Occasionally it is more appropriate and useful to provide a weight of edible cooked food from 100 g of raw. In those cases the factors provided are derived from the weight of cooked portions yielded from 100 g raw. They cannot be applied to data for the comparable raw food to "cook by calculation" as there are other factors such as nutrient retention to consider in such calculations. Conversion Factor for Edible Portion per 1 Kg - This is the number by which one would multiply the nutrient amount per 100 g to obtain the nutrient amount in the edible portion per 1 kg as described. Refuse, the inedible material (i.e., seeds, bone, and skin) contained in some foods can be calculated from this by using the following formula: Where: For raw meats, the items as purchased are raw; for cooked meats, these conversion values are the amounts in the edible portion from 1 kg of cooked meat with refuse. For meat cuts containing bone, any connective tissue present is included in the value given for bone. Separable fat is not part of the refuse if the meat is described as lean and fat. Lean refers to muscle tissue that can be readily separated out of the intact cut and includes any fat striations within the muscle. All measurements are metric. Metric System Equivalents employed in conversions are supplied in this section. All linear measurements are in centimeters. For certain nutrients there are no data at the present time. Information on CNF Nutrients For the most part, nutrients were determined by AOAC methods (5). Introduction to each series of USDA Handbook No. 8 outlines methodologies employed for each nutrient in detail. Trace amounts too small to be registered in the decimal spaces provided in the printed USDA Handbook No. 8 (16-40) may appear as decimal amounts in the CNF. In some cases, more nutrients are included on the electronic form of the USDA Handbook No. 8 series, than in the printed Handbooks. Where a discrepancy exists between the Handbook and electronic data, the electronic file gives the correct value. The five decimal digits seen throughout the CNF do not reflect the accuracy of the data but have been included for the purpose of minimizing round-off errors in subsequent calculations. Proximate components include moisture (water), protein, total lipid (fat), carbohydrate and ash. Addition of these 5 components should approach 100. Carbohydrate when present is determined as the difference between 100 and the sum of the remaining proximate components (and alcohol when present). The determination of Total carbohydrate values by this method of calculation include total dietary fibre. Carbohydrate values are assumed zero in animal products. Food Energy is expressed in both kilocalories (kcal) and kilojoules (kJ). One kcal equals 4.184 kJ. Calorie values are based on the Atwater system for determining energy values. Details for the derivation of the Atwater calorie factors are outlined in Agriculture Handbook No. 74 (11). This means that for most foods the calorie value will differ from that calculated by the general 4/9/4 factors for protein/fat/carbohydrate. Total Dietary Fibre (TDF) is made of complex and heterogeneous polymeric materials that are not easy to separate from other food components, particularly starch. Methods for dietary fibre have evolved remarkably over the past decade and at the moment there are 3 different AOAC approved methods for measuring TDF. TDF values originating from USDA data are analyzed by AOAC (5) methods 985.29 (Prosky) and 991.43 (Lee). Values originating from Canadian government laboratories (flag 3) were analyzed using AOAC method 992.16 (Mongeau). TDF is assumed zero in many foods after review of literature and/or consultation with scientific experts. Vitamin A is expressed both in international units (IU) and retinol equivalents (RE) as well as in RE of Total Carotenoids. Carotenoids are the only form of Vitamin A present in foods of non-animal origin. 1 IU Vitamin A = 3.33 RE Retinol Vitamin D is expressed in units of mg as well as international units (IU): Vitamin E is expressed in units of: Niacin is expressed both in terms of mg of preformed niacinamide present in the food as well as Niacin equivalents which includes that which can be formed from tryptophan. There are 2 methods of calculating niacin equivalents: If preformed niacin (mg) and code tryptophan (g) were present then: code 501/60 x 1000 + 406 = 409 If code 501 was not present then tryptophan was imputed to be 1.1% of total protein and: (0.011 x 203)/60 x 1000 +406 = 409 Fatty acids: The first number in the nutrient description for fatty acids is the number of carbon atoms and the second is the number of double bonds in the chain. Trivial or systematic names for the fatty acids have also been used. For unsaturated fatty acids, the trivial name reflects the most common isomer, although all isomers are included in the value. The values shown are for the actual quantity of each fatty acid and do not represent fatty acid triglycerides. These data were converted to grams of fatty acid per 100 g of total lipid (fat) using lipid conversion factors and then to gram of fatty acid per 100 grams edible portion of food using the total lipid content. Details of the derivation of lipid conversion factors have been published (41). As the individual fatty acids are determined by a different analytical method than that of total fat, the sum of fatty acids is rarely exactly equal to the total fat value. Moreover, total fat may include other fatty acids, phospholipids or sterols not analyzed in that food. Cholesterol is present only in foods of animal origin. For foods of plant origin, the value for cholesterol is assumed to be zero. Selenium. Values for Selenium in selected Canadian foods (4) have been compiled for this edition. Individual and Total Sugars Data for Individual and Total Sugars in selected foods (10) have been entered.
Metric System Equivalents for Units of Measure
References for CNF Nutrient Data:
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