Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Professor John Mathers
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
There are no standardised serving/portion sizes defined for foods consumed in the European Union (EU). Typical serving sizes can deviate significantly from the 100 g/100 ml labelling specification required by the EU legislation. Where the nutritional value of a portion is specified, the portion size is determined by the manufacturers. Our objective was to investigate the potential for standardising portion sizes for specific foods, thereby ensuring complementarity across countries. We compared portion size for 156 food items measured using a food frequency questionnaire across the seven countries participating in the Food4me study. The probability of consuming a food and the frequency of consumption differed across countries for 93% and 58% of the foods, respectively. However, the individual country mean portion size differed from the average across countries in only 16% of comparisons. Thus, although dietary choices vary markedly across countries, there is much less variation in portion sizes. Our results highlight the potential for standardisation of portion sizes on nutrition labels in the EU.
Author(s): Kirwan L, Walsh MC, Brennan L, Gibney ER, Drevon CA, Daniel H, Lovegrove JA, Manios Y, Martinez JA, Saris WHM, Traczyk I, Mathers JC, Gibney M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: European Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Year: 2016
Volume: 70
Issue: 5
Pages: 642-644
Print publication date: 01/05/2016
Online publication date: 03/02/2016
Acceptance date: 01/12/2015
Date deposited: 15/08/2016
ISSN (print): 0954-3007
ISSN (electronic): 1476-5640
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2015.227
DOI: 10.1038/ejcn.2015.227
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
