Abstract
Italian food is very popular around the world, but the knowledge of the proximate composition of traditional composite dishes consumed in Italy is limited. This is mainly due to the large regional variety and complexity of such dishes. The present study provides new analytical data in order to fill this gap. Thirty dishes from different regions in Italy were selected including main courses, side dishes and desserts. For each dish, samples were prepared and then analyzed to determine the nutrient composition in terms of moisture, protein, fat, starch, sugars, dietary fibre and energy value. The nutrients varied between the dishes as can be expected.
Moreover, to assess their specific nutritional quality, in terms of adequacy or deficit, the nutrients of one portion of every dish were compared with the Dietary References Values (DRVs) for the Italian population.
Our results provide an important update of the national Food Composition Database (FCDB) of the CREA Research Centre for Food and Nutrition. The new data widen the nutritional knowledge of a variety of traditional Italian dishes and provide dietary information to health workers, the food industry and consumers.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 115-124 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Journal of Food Composition and Analysis |
Volume | 77 |
Early online date | 16 Jan 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Apr 2019 |
Bibliographical note
This work was supported by the projects, EuroFIR and QUALIFU-SIAGRO. The authors thank Dr. Annalisa Lista for the linguistic revision and editing of this paper.Keywords
- Italian traditional recipes
- Food analysis
- Food composition
- Dietary intake
- Food composition database
- FOOD COMPOSITION DATA
- SCIENCE