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Within the European Food Information Resource Network of Excellence (EuroFIR NoE; FP6) and EuroFIR Nexus (FP7) project paucity in food composition databases (FCDB) in the Central Eastern Europe/Balkan (CEE/B) region was identified. As a member of EuroFIR NoE, the Centre of Research Excellence in Nutrition and Metabolism, Serbia initiated creation of the 1st online Serbian FCDB employing EuroFIR quality framework and CEN Food Data Standard requirements, supporting capacity development and designing the web-based Food Composition Data Management (FCDM) software for FCDB building. The 1st online version of Serbian FCDB was launched in 2007, and then extended with food composition data from other Balkan countries (Balkan Food Platform-Regional FCDB). All foods are indexed using LanguaL Thesaurus and coded with EFSA FoodEx2 coding system. To date, upgraded Serbian FCDB with 1046 foods and 129 traditional/common Serbian composite dishes is a prerequisite for nutritional research in Serbia, CEE/B region and wider Europe.

We report on the geLC–MS/MS proteomics analysis of cereals and cereal food excavated in Subeixi cemetery (500–300 BC) in Xinjiang, China. Proteomics provided direct evidence that at the Subexi sourdough bread was made from barley and broomcorn millet by leavening with a renewable starter comprising baker's yeast and lactic acid bacteria. The baking recipe and flour composition indicated that barley and millet bread belonged to the staple food already in the first millennium BC and suggested the role of Turpan basin as a major route for cultural communication between Western and Eastern Eurasia in antiquity. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Proteomics of non-model organisms. Biological significance We demonstrate that organic residues of thousand year old foods unearthed by archeological excavations can be analyzed by geLC–MS/MS proteomics with good representation of protein source organisms and coverage of sequences of identified proteins. In-depth look into the foods proteome identifies the food type and its individual ingredients, reveals ancient food processing technologies, projects their social and economic impact and provides evidence of intercultural communication between ancient populations. Proteomics analysis of ancient organic residues is direct, quantitative and informative and therefore has the potential to develop into a valuable, generally applicable tool in archaeometry. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Proteomics of non-model organisms.

The history of dietary guidelines for heart health — a project begun in the 1950s when the United States felt threatened by a perceived “epidemic” of heart attacks — reveals that the Mediterranean diet's cardiovascular benefits have been recognized for decades.

Nutritional epidemiology is a highly prolific field. Debates on associations of nutrients with disease risk are common in the literature and attract attention in public media.We aimed to examine the conclusions, statistical significance, and reproducibility in the literature on associations between specific foods and cancer risk.We selected 50 common ingredients from random recipes in a cookbook. PubMed queries identified recent studies that evaluated the relation of each ingredient to cancer risk. Information regarding author conclusions and relevant effect estimates were extracted. When10 articles were found, we focused on the 10 most recent articles.Forty ingredients (80%) had articles reporting on their cancer risk. Of 264 single-study assessments, 191 (72%) concluded that the tested food was associated with an increased (n = 103) or a decreased (n = 88) risk; 75% of the risk estimates had weak (0.05P ≥ 0.001) or no statistical (P0.05) significance. Statistically significant results were more likely than nonsignificant findings to be published in the study abstract than in only the full text (P0.0001). Meta-analyses (n = 36) presented more conservative results; only 13 (26%) reported an increased (n = 4) or a decreased (n = 9) risk (6 had more than weak statistical support). The median RRs (IQRs) for studies that concluded an increased or a decreased risk were 2.20 (1.60, 3.44) and 0.52 (0.39, 0.66), respectively. The RRs from the meta-analyses were on average null (median: 0.96; IQR: 0.85, 1.10).Associations with cancer risk or benefits have been claimed for most food ingredients. Many single studies highlight implausibly large effects, even though evidence is weak. Effect sizes shrink in meta-analyses.