Dietary assessment tools

Dietary assessment is not easy. We often need good quality information on type of food used as well as the amount eaten. But there is no dietary assessment method that is suitable for all purposes, or all populations. For example, the intake assessment of a specific nutrient during a clinical intervention requires a different method than the estimation of habitual food intake in a healthy population.

This webpage assists you in selecting the optimal tool for dietary assessment. A better understanding of the principles underlying each dietary assessment tool, with their advantages and disadvantages, will help you to choose the optimal method for your research question and target population. Other factors that you should consider are the available dietetics expertise in your research team, and factors such as planning and financial resources.

All tools available at the division of Human Nutrition and Health are
based on validated self-reporting methodologies.

Before you fill in a request form to use our tools, we encourage you to read:

• the checklist for choosing the best method
• the background information on our tools (see below)
• the conditions for using our tools (in Dutch)

Available tools

• Compl-eat – including a web-based tool for 24-hour dietary recalls to be filled out by the participant or by an interviewer, data entry of food records, and nutrient calculation software
• Eetscore– short food frequency questionnaire to assess the diet quality according to the current Dutch Foodbased Dietary Guidelines and give targeted dietary advice to the participant
• FFQ tool – web-based tool to generate, apply and process specific FFQs for your research needs
• Traqq – a flexible dietary assessment app (iOS/Android) that can be used as a food record and a recall