TÜBİTAK has collected the nutritional and energy values of more than 500 foods produced and consumed in Turkey in TürKomp, the National Food Composition Database.

Today, many countries need reliable and traceable national data representing the food they produce and consume across their geographies. For many years, Turkey has been trying to fulfill this need through the use of data sources from various countries. In order to eliminate external dependency in this field, a large-scale research was initiated under the leadership of the Food Institute (GE) of the TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center (MAM). Launched in 2008, the project established a food component data generation system representing Turkey for use in agriculture, food, nutrition and health. "www.turkomp.gov.trThe system, named TürKomp, which has been put into service at the web address "TürKomp", will be able to respond to calls in Turkish and English. The system will serve through the server of the General Directorate of Agricultural Research and Policies (TAGEM) of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock.

Data Generated on Over 500 Foods

The project titled 'Determination of National Food Composition and Establishment of a Widespread Continuous Sharing System', supported by TÜBİTAK KAMAG 1007 Program, was carried out with the collaboration of research teams working in the laboratories of MAM Food Institute, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock and Ministry of Health. With the project, the energy and nutrient levels of agricultural products produced and consumed in Turkey and industrialized traditional foods were determined with advanced laboratory analysis techniques. Prepared at national scale and international standards, TürKomp contains approximately 63 thousand data for 100 components of more than 500 foods.

Comparison between Foods

In TürKomp, where data is also displayed by region, searches can be made by food, ingredient and nutrition, and it is easy to find out which vitamins are in which foods. Two different foods can be compared in terms of their components on the same screen, ranked from most to least, and daily energy and nutrient levels can be easily calculated with the "lunchbox". TürKomp will serve as a national data source for education, research, production, investment and legislation in the fields of agriculture, food, nutrition and health, and for the conscious nutrition of the society.

Traditional Foods Also Registered

Within the scope of the project, 122 different production techniques of 53 traditional foods such as molasses, tarhana, bulgur, Turkish delight and baklava were recorded and their compositions were determined. 'traditional food draft registration files' supported by scientific data that can be used in international platforms to prove that these products are traditional foods of Turkey were also prepared. Information on traditional foods will be shared after the registration process is completed.