Dietary standards

There are two primary purposes and uses of dietary standards--the planning of diets or food supplies and the evaluation of dietary histories. It is argured that no single set of dietary standards can adequately fulfill both functions. The design of diets requires considerations other than estimates of nutritional needs--food supplies, food habits, and so forth--and must ordinarily provide the needs of groups ofmixed age, sex, and activity. Standards based on nutrient density may be the most useful for this purpose. The evaluation of the nutritional adequacy of foods eaten must be based on estimates of nutritional need. How, in applying, such standards, consideration must be given to the variability in nutrient intake from day to day. Current methods of evaluating dietary data inevitably overestimate the number of individuals at risk of nutritional deficiency.