Nutritional evaluation of some processed catering foods

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