The Pacific Islands Food Composition Tables, Second Edition

Traditional Pacific Island diets were diverse and nutritionally appropriate. They included a wide range of foods, such as root crops, coconuts, green leaves, fruit, fish and seafood. In recent decades Pacific Islanders have experienced many changes in lifestyle, including changes in diet. Most of the dietary changes have not been for the better, and have contributed to the double burden of malnutrition throughout the Pacific: undernourishment and micronutrient deficiencies, and, at the other ext reme, overweight and obesity and diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Based on analyses to date, it is known that many indigenous Pacific crops and foods have particularly high nutrient contents. However, changes in lifestyle and food habits over the last decades have been associated with a reduction in the consumption of traditional foods and an increase in consumption of imported convenience foods. Thus, the diet-related disease burden is extreme. Analytical data on foods in the f ood supply allow us to see the composition of our foods, and enable us to construct diets to combat the deficiencies and excesses.

Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Cecily Dignan, Barbara Burlingame, Shailesh Kumar and William Aalbersberg;Nutrition Division
Format:	Book (stand-alone) biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	2004
Online Access:	https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/Y5432E http://www.fao.org/3/a-y5432e.pdf
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