Global Dietary Database
Currently, for most countries, the only available dietary data are food balance sheets from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which provide rough national estimates of food availability or disappearance. Previous work has shown that, even nationally, such data have shortcomings, for example, total daily energy intakes are often overestimated by about 1000 kilocalories per day; and intake levels of most foods are overestimated by 50-200%. Furthermore FAO data provide no information on diet subnationally, for example, by age, sex, pregnancy/nursing status, or socioeconomic status. Thus, the true levels of consumption of most food and nutrients across the world, and particularly among specific population subgroups, are unknown.