Recipes are another source of food information. Not all foods can be found in food databases, There is a limitless number of recipes and thus a limitless number of foods. You only need to look at the number of recipe books that are available to have an idea of the number of foods that are possible.

A good study needs to be able to identify commonly used recipes in the target populations and find suitable foods to code for those recipes. Where there are no suitable codes, the ingredients of the recipe need to be identified and a suitable food defined from these ingredients. CANDAT has tools to do this and to manage the consequent data

The following are the two menu selections needed manage the tasks in the recipe module.

This from the main CANDAT menu and

this from the choices then presented:

The standard startup choices below are presented after the selection of a task and

are explained in . The prompts that follow activating “START the task”  control the options for the task in question and are explained in the appropriate task chapter.

The list of tasks in the task menu area are listed in the order one would use them. More detailed information about each task can be found in that task’s chapter.

1. 400 Recipe file maintenance – this is where recipes are defined, copied, modified, listed, etc.
2. 410 Recipe file validation – once recipes have been created this task validates that the ingredients exist and that proper units have been specified for quantities
3. 420 Recipe nutrient calculations – nutrients are calculated for each recipe and listed on a total and per ingredient basis. Ratings of recipes based on system Recommended Daily Intakes (RDI) are listed here as well
4. 430 Recipe to food file conversion – to use recipe data as part of subject recalls or even as ingredients in other recipes, they must be made into foods using food files. The foods in these food files can then be used as input to subject data or recipe data and managed like regular food files
5. 100 Food file maintenance – this task is part of the food files module. It is included here as a convenient link to food files once recipes have been converted to foods
6. 440 Recipe reports by types – part of the definition of foods has optional fields which define attributes of the recipe. The reports in this task allow listing of recipes that satisfy those attributes.