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Food Composition Discussion Group <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 14 Mar 2015 10:20:50 +0100
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Anders Møller <[log in to unmask]>
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To: John C Klensin <[log in to unmask]>
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Dear Ruth and John,

Thanks John, you are too modest. Your memory is sharp and bright. I have
same memories and remember the meetings in Belagio, Italy, and Logan, Utah,
some thirty years ago. They meant a turning point in international
collaboration on food composition.

It seems like the support for food composition work comes in waves both
locally and internationally, but not at the same time.

I think it is important to emphasize that national/regional food composition
work cannot be carried out in an efficient and qualitative way without the
international collaboration. Our foods travel around the world - often in
strange ways. We cannot all analyse all foods for all nutrients and need to
have information about the travelling foods from colleagues at the origin of
the foods - without the international collaboration this would be
impossible.
INFOODS - both before and after inclusion at FAO - has made an enormous
impact on the way we work by setting guidelines of which we are still
discussing some, some may have become outdated, but also new have developed
on the thorough foundation laid by INFOODS and later FAO/INFOODS.

In my opinion, it is important to maintain international coordination of
food composition work, and I urge all you members on the FAO/INFOODS
listserv to answer the few questions in Ruth's survey,
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9N5N6G5 - and get your colleagues to do the
same.

All the best,
Anders

-----Original Message-----
From: Food Composition Discussion Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John C Klensin
Sent: 13 March 2015 20:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: FAO to reduce some food composition work

Ruth,

If my vague and very incomplete memory from the early 1980s is correct, it
was a previous major cutback of FAO activity in food composition and the
effects of that cutback that ultimately led to the development of INFOODS
and several of the associated regional food composition organizations.

I think your survey and other efforts to understand national and other
priorities is worthwhile.  At the same time, I have also been, as you know,
concerned that INFOODS (and most of the regional groups at the time) were
very forward-looking while many of the FAO efforts have seemed to be
oriented toward preserving and reinforcing the status quo even when we know
it is problematic.

Noting that next week marks the 30th anniversary of the Logan, Utah
conference that defined much of the INFOODS work and led to publication of
_Food Composition Data: A User's Perspective_, perhaps it is time for the
community to start thinking about a similar conference or other systematic
review of where we have come and where we should be going and/or other ways
to organize the work in which, e.g., an FAO that is putting more emphasis on
other areas might be more of a partner with other bodies rather than the
leader.

    best regards,
     John

(Because it may be relevant to identify myself for those who don't know: I
was the last Director of the INFOODS Secretariat under MIT and UNU auspices
as well as author or co-author of the original INFOODS specifications for
food composition data identification and interchange.  I've spent most of
the last twenty years of so in topics much more closely related to Internet
technology and policy and have never been a food scientist, food chemist, or
nutritionist, but continue to follow this list and INFOODS developments with
interest.)

p.s. A colleague from the Internet technology and policy part of my life has
recently started a blog and discussion that builds on "Internet of Things"
discussions to look at the "Internet of Food".  It is definitely oriented
toward lay people rather than specialists, but might be interesting or
amusing to some of the people on this list.  http://internet-of-food.org/


--On Friday, March 13, 2015 17:27 +0100 "Charrondiere, Ruth (ESN)"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear all,
> I would like to bring to your attention FAO's "Medium Term Plan 
> 2014-17 (reviewed) and Programme of Work and Budget 2016-17" 
> (http://www.fao.org/3/a-mm710e.pdf) which states on
> p.21: "Nutrition: in realigning and strengthening work on nutrition in 
> follow-up to ICN2, reduce work on nutrition education curricular 
> development and some food composition work."
> 
> It comes as a surprise as the Evaluation of FAO's role and work in 
> nutrition of 2011 recommended exactly the contrary:
> see p.14 and recommendation 7
> (http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/023/mb663E01.pdf).
> 
> In the past, two professionals were working on food composition 
> (Barbara Burlingame and me) with a much higher level of regular budget 
> funding. Barbara left FAO in 2014.
> 
> In order to know which part of our work is the least relevant for 
> countries, and thus could be de-emphasized, I designed a survey 
> https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9N5N6G5 which I hope many of you will 
> complete ASAP. Please disseminate it widely also to colleagues who 
> work on food composition.

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