Dietary survey methodology of FINDIET 2007 with a risk assessment perspective

A cross-sectional survey, FINDIET 2007, was carried out in Finland. Food intake data was collected by a 48 h recall interview. Additional food intake data was collected by a repeated 3 d food diary, a barcode-based product diary, a food frequency questionnaire and by a supplementary questionnaire on rarely eaten foods. The purpose of the present paper is to describe the methodology of the national dietary survey and to discuss the particular implications for the applications of food consumption data in risk assessment. The food consumption data of the FINDIET 2007 survey can be used in food risk assessment, due thanks to flexible data processing of individual food consumption, and a risk assessment point of view was taken into account. However, international standardisation projects are needed in order to estimate comparable food intakes.