Food nutrient metrology: international activities

Castanheira, Isabel

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.18/1271

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Castanheira, Isabel

Abstract(s)

In the last decade measurements of nutrients content in foodstuffs has shown a noticeable trend, especially towards a wider range of applications demanding accurate results to be comparable at national and international level. Metrology, the science of measurement, plays an important role to clarify and identify the approaches that guarantee the foundation of measurement systems involved in quantification of food components. International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO) recently created the technical committee in food and nutrition (TC 23 - Metrology in Food and Nutrition). The main interest of IMEKO TC23 is emphasizing both theoretical and practical fields covering: fundamental aspects; dissemination and traceability; instrumentation and methods of analysis. Its contribution aims at minimizing systematic and random errors that occur during nutrient measurement processes. These consistent IMEKO initiatives have spread the metrological principles to clarify issues on traceability of nutrient measurements, including identification of critical points on the chain of traceability from the highest to the lowest level of precision. The aim is to strengthen the links between Food, Science and Metrology in order to allow the spread of metrological principles and concepts into the food and nutrition arena by an international organization, supported by a host of outstanding metrology experts. IMEKO has promoted harmonization in issues related with terminology and the use of SI units, improving comparability of results produced by laboratories generating nutrient data. Furthermore, cooperation of IMEKO with EuroFIR AISBL to establish a platform for interchange of nutrient data, supported in the main pillars of metrology: method validation; estimation of measurement uncertainty and establishment of metrological traceability, is discussed.