Research findings from The Periodic Table of Food (PTFI) identified 1,650 foods required to undergo molecular analysis to progress health and environmental knowledge.
In 2024, a scientific paper published in Nature Food by the Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) revealed a critical gap in scientific understanding of the foods we eat.
The Periodic Table of Food (PTFI) identified a list of 1,650 foods for molecular analysis to progress nutrition and planetary health. Therefore, the global effort to create a public database of the biochemical composition and function of food plans to expand global food composition databases by over 1,000 foods.
Prioritisation was one of the core drivers behind PTFI’s analysis. With over 30,000 edible species on the planet, as an initiative, PTFI wanted to get a prioritised list of foods as a starting point for its analysis.
“For that, we used three parameters: foods that are commonly consumed, foods that are culturally important, and foods that regions/countries consider to have significant future potential,” Maya Rajasekharan, Managing Director of Africa at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT and Director of Strategy Integration and Engagement of PTFI, told IFIS Publishing.
The list comprises 1,650 carefully selected foods diverse in nutrition and culture, and can be analysed biochemically. Out of these, over 1,000 foods are not present in any of the globally accepted food composition databases, which play a crucial role in providing dietary guidelines and shaping agricultural policies.
Lack of labelling and limited data
“A substantial portion of what humanity consumes remains a scientific mystery,” said Selena Ahmed, Global Director of PTFI at the American Heart Association, which co-facilitates the PTFI Secretariat.
“Not only have these foods been invisible to nutritional science, but an estimated 95% of the biomolecules in food have escaped our analysis and don’t appear on food labels. We may think we know what we’re eating, but most of the time, we have limited understanding,” adds Ahmed.
With more than 1,000 foods not included in any globally recognised food composition databases, this subsequently limits the industry's understanding of these missing foods. “To address climate change and to improve nutrition and health, we need to diversify what we farm and what we eat,” says Rajasekharan.
Data from PTFI aims to provide scientific evidence to support the diversification and inclusion of locally adapted crops in our diets. Previous research has shown that the human race increasingly depends on a handful of major crops for much of its food, and our diet across the globe is becoming homogenised, PTFI says.
Insufficient data may prompt concerns about how this impacts dietary guidelines and guides to agricultural policies. “High-quality food composition data are indispensable for improved decision-making in food security, health policy formulation, food labelling, diet formulation and many other nutrition-related activities,” Rajasekharan confirms.
Interconnectedness of food
“There is a pressing need for comprehensive, publicly accessible metrics that acknowledge the interconnectedness of our food, our health and our environment,” said Rajasekharan. “For decades, food has been viewed through a reductionist lens, often simplified to calories and essential nutrients. PTFI promises to fundamentally change this approach for the better.”
The range of foods on the PTFI list is fairly extensive. The list includes a variety of food items, with fruits making up 30%, vegetables 25%, nuts and seeds 8%, land animal products 8%, aquatic animal products 7%, and the remaining food items are sourced from fungal and bacterial species, and one unique item is from a lichen.
While there are 1,650 different types of foods on the list, the majority of human diets today are quite narrow, the researchers note. In fact, almost half of global calories come from three main crops—wheat, maize, and rice—which are typically grown as monocultures.
There are around 476 types of food that are widely cultivated and consumed across the globe, while there are others that are regionally important and originated from different parts of the world, including the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Pacific, or Europe. However, it's concerning to note that a majority of around 62% of the listed foods are not documented in global public databases like FoodData Central or the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN) database.
Wattle seeds are among the foods on a list that have been used by Aboriginal communities for thousands of years. These seeds are derived from Acacia trees native to Australia. The nutritional and medicinal qualities of these foods, along with their impact on health and ecosystem, are topics of inquiry. The list also comprises 98 African crops, out of which 56 are not documented in food databases.
Interested in knowing more? Take a deeper look into traditional foods with our article, Indigenous Fruits and Vegetables.
Guest written by Professors Yasmina Sultanbawa and Dharini Sivakumar
Tools, technologies and food composition tables
Extensive research is being conducted on numerous food items using advanced technologies such as high-resolution mass spectrometry and artificial intelligence (AI). The primary focus of the research is to uncover the "mystery elements" of food, which refer to the vast number of unknown biochemicals that play a crucial role in determining their quality and impact on human health.
“There are technical challenges limiting the potential of evaluating food composition,” Rajasekharan says, describing the potential reasons behind this critical gap in scientific understanding of the foods we consume. Reproducibility, standardisation, quantification and accessibility are among these obstacles.
PTFI also confirms that almost half of the world's countries do not have food composition tables. These tables collect data on the nutritional content of foods consumed. “Big revolutions in artificial intelligence (AI) will also make applications of food composition research scalable,” adds Rajasekharan.
“Even when countries have food composition databases, they are mostly not updated,” says Rajasekharan. “This is a major gap, and we need tools, technologies, and capacity to produce comprehensive food composition.”
Diversifying the foods we eat
The world currently relies on a small number of crops and foods to feed its population, which may pose risks to consumers. “With climate change, we need farms that are more resilient—that means diversification of farming systems are needed,” Rajasekharan says. “Our diets also need to include more diverse foods to address nutritional insecurity and prevent non-communicable diseases,” Rajasekharan details.
“Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change and the devastation of the planet,” said co-author Bruce German, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of PTFI and Director of the Foods for Health Institute at the University of California, Davis. “The foods we grow are driving diet-dependent diseases that are a major cause of morbidity and mortality around the world. And the only way to fix this, the necessary step, is knowing what food is.”
“The PTFI’s findings represent a clarion call for further research across the food system—from farmers to policymakers, from nutritionists to chefs, from scientists to consumers—to make informed decisions that promote diversity, sustainability, and resilience in food production and consumption,” Ahmed said.
PTFI data aims to provide a more robust evidence base to support diversification and disease prevention. Following the analysis, it recommends providing standardised methods of data analysis to ensure comparable data. “We need empirical evidence/ scientific data on the composition of foods we eat,” says Rajasekharan. “Currently, there is a huge gap,” Rajasekharan adds.
A group of 40 experts from different regions worldwide compiled the list through a global participatory process. The list contains a diverse range of foods that are culturally relevant and have the potential to contribute to the human diet as the climate changes. The initiative is facilitated by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, with scientific advice and knowledge provided by both organisations. Additionally, the American Heart Association also supports the initiative.
In April 2024, PTFI launched new resources designed to provide researchers worldwide with access to standardised tools, data, and capacity-strengthening measures. The tools’ aims to enable researchers to use these resources to conduct extensive studies on the molecular composition of foods from various parts of the world.
Author interviews conducted and blog post originally written April 2024
