Measuring Food Intake 243the food supply, at a product-specifi c level. Their
principal disadvantage at present lies in the costs
associated with processing or otherwise accessing, on
a regular basis, the very large amounts of data that are
involved.
FAO food balance sheets and similar sources of
information are primarily useful for formulating
agricultural and health policy, for monitoring changes
in national food supplies over time, and as a basis for
forecasting food consumption patterns. They can also
be used to make intercountry comparisons of food
and nutrient supplies, provided that potential differ-
ences in data coverage and accuracy are taken into
account.
Household-based surveys
Household-based surveys determine the foods and
beverages available for consumption at family, house-
hold, or institutional levels. Some surveys such as
household expenditure or household budget surveys
determine the amount of money spent on food for a
given period, while others, such as the food account,
food inventory, and food record methods, attempt to
describe the food available and/or consumed by a
household or institution.
Household food expenditure surveys
Household food expenditure surveys determine the
amount of money spent on food by a household over
a given period. Household food expenditure data can
provide useful information for nutritionists on food
expenditure patterns of different types of households,
but without quantitative information this cannot be
translated into nutrient patterns.
Household budget surveys (HBSs) are conducted
at regular intervals in many European countries and
many also collect data on food quantities as well as
cost. HBSs have several advantages:
● they are usually conducted at regular intervals of
between 1 and 5 years
● they are conducted on representative samples of
households
● the food supply information collected can be
classifi ed by sociodemographic characteristics,
geographical location, and season.
The large amount of nutrition-related information
collected by these surveys offers the potential to assess
the nutritional patterns of different population
groups, to identify high-risk groups for nutrition-
related conditions, to monitor trends in food patterns
over time, and for developing nutrition policy.
A modifi cation of the HBS, known as the list recall
method, includes quantities of items purchased,
which strengthens the information. The information
available from HBSs, however, also needs to be con-
sidered in the context of their limitations.
● Information provided by HBSs differs from country
to country both in the number of food items
recorded and in the type of information collected.
● Most surveys do not include expenditure informa-
tion on food consumed outside the home.
● Most surveys do not collect information on foods
acquired by means other than purchase. For
example, food obtained as gifts, produced by the
household itself, or harvested from the wild.
● Most surveys do not collect information on domes-
tic wastage, i.e., food given to pets, spoiled food and
plate waste, or food provided for guests.
● It is often diffi cult to estimate the nutrient content
of the food available to the household because data
are reported only at food group and not individual
food level.
● Differences in food coding systems between coun-
tries make it diffi cult to compare data between
countries.
Three conclusions emerge from this list. First, the
data obtained from HBSs are not necessarily compa-
rable between countries. Second, most HBSs do not
collect all of the information needed to provide an
accurate assessment of the total food supply available
at household level. Third, provided that the HBS
methodology remains consistent, HBSs can provide a
great deal of valuable information about food pat-
terns over time, in different sociodemographic groups,
and in different parts of the country, and how these
relate to social, economic, and technological changes
in the food supply.Household food account method
In the food account method, the household member
responsible for the household’s food keeps a record
of the types and amounts of all food entering the
household including purchases, gifts, foods produced
by the household itself such as from vegetable and
fruit gardens, foods obtained from the wild, or from
other sources. Amounts are usually recorded in retail