Nutritional evaluation of some processed catering foods

Five prepared catering dishes were analysed to evaluate the proximate composition and the fatty acids, vitamin E, thiamine and riboflavin content. The correspondent values were calculated from actually available food composition tables (two from Italy, one from the UK and one from the USA). When using more than one database to calculate the composition of a complex recipe the average values were similar to the analytical ones despite the wide range reported for some variables. However, there was no significant difference in the statistical analyses between the analytical values and databases, or among the databases themselves. Therefore if the composition of a specific recipe is required, analyses would be advisable, but the available databases are quite adequate if the evaluation is for groups of people, even allowing for the seasonal variability of ingredients.