Nutrient Composition of Popularly Consumed African and Caribbean Foods in The UK

Abstract

(1) Background: Traditional foods are important in the diets of Black Africans and Caribbeans and, more widely, influence UK food culture. However, little is known about the nutritional status of these ethnic groups and the nutrient composition of their traditional foods. The aim was to identify and analyse African and Caribbean dishes, snacks and beverages popularly consumed in the UK for energy, macronutrients and micronutrients. (2) Methods: Various approaches including focus group discussions and 24-h dietary recalls were used to identify traditional dishes, snacks, and beverages. Defined criteria were used to prioritise and prepare 33 composite samples for nutrient analysis in a UK accredited laboratory. Quality assurance procedures and data verification were undertaken to ensure inclusion in the UK nutrient database. (3) Results: Energy content ranged from 60 kcal in Malta drink to 619 kcal in the shito sauce. Sucrose levels did not exceed the UK recommendation for adults and children. Most of the dishes contained negligible levels of trans fatty acid. The most abundant minerals were Na, K, Ca, Cu, Mn and Se whereas Mg, P, Fe and Zn were present in small amounts. (4) Conclusion: There was wide variation in the energy, macro- and micronutrients composition of the foods analysed.

Feasibility of a Community Healthy Eating and Cooking Intervention Featuring Traditional African Caribbean Foods from Participant and Staff Perspectives

“…In the UK, there is a need to tackle health inequalities in health and diet across different population groups since higher levels of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity are experienced by people of different ethnicities, including those of African Caribbean backgrounds, compared to Caucasian populations [1]. Poor health outcomes are also related to dietary intake (i.e., of energy, saturates, sugars, salt, and fibre), which are known to fall outside of Government dietary recommendations for most people in the UK [2], including people of African Caribbean ethnicities [3][4][5]. In the UK, health outcomes, obesity levels, and dietary quality are all expected to worsen in the current economic crisis [6].…”

Development of an Unified Food Composition Database for the European Project “Stance4Health”

“…Nevertheless, most food composition data are based on fresh foods, while information on processed foods, recipes or fortified foods is usually missing or not up to date [9,15,16,29]. Organizations such as the International Network of Food Data Systems (INFOODS) [23,32,33] are making great efforts to provide information about different FCT/FCDB, promoting the reliability and up-to-date nature of the data [34,35].…”

“…Therefore, by having a harmonized and standardized FCT/FCDB, comparisons between countries would be possible and nutritional data would be more accurate and com-prehensive [10,15,34]. In order to standardize terms between data bases, different ontologies are used in nutritional research [9,36,37].…”

The daily energy and macronutrient intake of Black African women pregnant in their 2nd trimester - preliminary findings in Liverpool, UK

“…Black women in this study were consuming sufficient energy and macronutrients to support pregnancy needs in the 2 nd trimester. However, fibre intake was significantly lower than recommended, this is surprising as many traditional African foods are high in complex carbohydrate (5) . Free sugars and trans-fatty acid intakes were well below the upper limit recommended, which is positive and may reduce the risk of non- communicable disease.…”