Dear Jean, Your questions are very specific, so I suggest that you ask the USDA Nutrient Data team directly. The values for dietary fibre are method dependent. The documentation of the USDA Nutrient Database SR28 says: “Total dietary fiber content is determined by enzymatic-gravimetric methods 985.29 or 991.43 of the AOAC (2012).” For further reading, I suggest that you take a look at Food energy – methods of analysis and conversion factors (downloadable from FAO ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/006/y5022e/y5022e00.pdf) and Monro, J. & Burlingame, B. 1996. Carbohydrates and related food components: INFOODS tagnames, meanings, and uses. J. Food Composition and Analysis, 9: 100–118. and make a Google Scholar search (http://scholar.google.dk/scholar?q=Determination+of+dietary+fiber <http://scholar.google.dk/scholar?q=Determination+of+dietary+fiber&hl=en> &hl=en) on the subject. All the best, Anders Anders Møller Danish Food Informatics Borgediget 12 DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark From: Food Composition Discussion Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jean Tiffany Cox Sent: 21 July 2016 00:00 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: fiber estimates in USDA food composition tables Greetings, all, I have a question about the USDA food composition tables. For fiber, the category is entitled "Total Dietary Fiber." Does that include any fiber that might have been added to the food? Are the short chained oligosaccharides included? I'm wondering specifically about inulin and resistant starches but I would assume there are others, too. Would lignin be included? Am I correct in assuming that all the foods were analyzed by the same methods? I thank you for your insights! Jean Cox, MS, RD, LN Department of OB/GYN University of New Mexico _____ To unsubscribe from the InFoods-Food-Comp-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=InFoods-Food-Comp-L <https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=InFoods-Food-Comp-L&A=1> &A=1 ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the InFoods-Food-Comp-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=InFoods-Food-Comp-L&A=1