Specialised courses

On food description and food nomenclature

LanguaL - Food Description Thesaurus

LanguaL stands for "Langua aLimentaria" or "language of food". It is an automated method of describing, capturing and retrieving data about food. The thesaurus provides a standardised language for describing foods, specifically for classifying food products for information retrieval. LanguaL is based on the concept that:

• Any food (or food product) can be systematically described by a combination of characteristics
• These characteristics can be categorised into viewpoints and coded for computer processing
• The resulting viewpoint/characteristic codes can be used to retrieve data about the food from external databases

LanguaL is a multilingual thesaural system using facetted classification. Each food is described by a set of standard, controlled terms chosen from facets characteristic of the nutritional and/or hygienic quality of a food, as for example the biological origin, the methods of cooking and conservation, and technological treatments. One problem concerning multilingual thesauri is the multiplicity of natural languages: corresponding terms of different languages are not always semantically equivalent. It was chosen to render LanguaL language-independent, to be used in the USA and Europe for numeric databases on food composition (nutrients and contaminants), food consumption and legislation. Each descriptor is identified by a unique code pointing to equivalent terms in different languages (e.g. Danish, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian). LanguaL thus facilitates links to many different food databases and contributes to coherent data exchange. LanguaL is the only generally recognised method in common use for describing, capturing and retrieving data about food that is adapted to computerised national and international food composition and consumption databases.

Available from The Graduate School VLAG & the Division of Human Nutrition of the Wageningen University

International Graduate Course on Production and Use of Food Composition Data in Nutrition

The aim of the famous FoodComp Course is to demonstrate how to produce, manage and use good quality food composition data in a standardized way, using harmonized procedures, so that the requirements of the multiple users of food composition data can be met. The course is based on the philosophy that the preparation of food composition databases (FCDBs) requires close understanding of the needs of the users by both compilers and producers of analytical data. Therefore it shows how this understanding can be achieved and the benefits that flow from the collaboration of users, analysts and compilers. The major elements of the course, which comprises lectures, seminars, excursions, e-learning and group work, are:

• Requirements and use of FCDB at different levels
• Steps in establishing a FCDB
• Selecting and establishing priorities for including foods, nutrients and other food components in databases
• Sampling of foods
• Methods of analysis: critical evaluation and choice of methods
• Data quality (management) and evaluation
• Format and modes of expression
• Food nomenclature, classification and identification
• Recipe calculations
• Compilation of data
• Nutrient calculation software
• Documentation and database management

The next  FoodComp course will take place at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, from the 15-26 November. For more information and for an application form, please see the attached FoodComp 2010 flier (0.8MB)

Plant food analysis and data handling

Tailor-made courses on food composition