The nutrition resource consists of three parts:
1. Food database
This resource contains the molecular composition information for 8,790 food items distributed in 25 food groups, which was obtained from the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference [1]. Of the 150 nutritional constituents of each food item, we could map 100 to the metabolites present in the VMH.
2. Diet database
We defined 11 diets with the support of a nutrition professional were based on real-life examples and literature. For instance, an "EU diet" was designed based on information from an Austrian Survey, on which about 100 people from different ages [2]. The diets consist of a one-day meal plan and include information about energy content, fatty acids, amino acids, carbohydrates, dietary fibers, vitamins, minerals, and trace elements. The composition of each meal (e.g., eggs and bread for breakfast) is given in the appropriate portion sizes. The information for the nutritional composition of each food item and dish was obtained from the "Österreichische Nährwerttabelle" [3].
The molecular composition can be downloaded in g per person (70kg) per day or as flux rate (in millimole per person per day), which can be directly integrated with, e.g., the human metabolic model (see Human metabolism resource) using the COBRA toolbox [4].
3. Diet designer
This tool allows users to design their diets. The interface is divided into two lists: "Available foods" and "Selected foods". Users can search and select any food from the available 8,790 foods and add them to the list of selected by specifying a portion size. While the user designs the diet, the overall information is updated with respect to information on total calories, lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates, and weight. When finished, the user can see and download the corresponding molecular composition as well as flux values for further computational modeling, e.g., using the human metabolic model (see Human metabolism resource) and the COBRA toolbox [4].
Please note that the nutrition resource is still under development. We welcome feedback (using the Feeback functionality on our webpage) to further improve this resource.
References