DIETARY SOURCES OF NUTRIENTS AMONG US ADULTS, 1989 TO 1991

Objective To identify major food sources of 27 nutrients and dietary c onstituents for US adults. Design Single 24-hour dietary recalls were used to assess intakes. From 3,970 individual foods reported, 112 grou ps were created on the basis of similarities in nutrient content or us e. Food mixtures were disaggregated using the US Department of Agricul ture (USDA) food grouping system. Subjects/setting A nationally repres entative sample of adults aged 19 years or older (n=10,638) from USDA' s 1989-91 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals. Analyses p erformed For each of 27 dietary components, the contribution of each f ood group to intake was obtained by summing the amount provided by the food group for all respondents and dividing by total intake from all food groups for all respondents. Results This article updates previous work and is, to the authors' knowledge, the first to provide such dat a for carotenes, vitamin B-12, magnesium, and copper. Beef, yeast brea d, poultry, cheese, and milk were among the top 10 sources of energy, fat, and protein. The following other major sources also contributed m ore than 2% to energy intakes: carbohydrate: yeast bread, soft drinks/ soda, cakes/cookies/quick breads/doughnuts, sugars/syrups/jams, potato es (white), ready-to-eat cereal, and pasta; protein: pasta; and fat: m argarine, salad dressings/mayonnaise, and cakes/cookies/quick breads/d oughnuts. Ready-to-eat cereals, primarily because of fortification, we re among the top 10 food sources for 18 of 27 nutrients. Applications/ conclusions These analyses are the most current regarding food sources of nutrients and, because of disaggregation of mixtures, provide a tr uer picture of contributions of each food group.