[Data-modeling] Modeling nutritional information

[Mohammad Al-Ubaydli]

Your comments are really helpful, thank you. My replies are below.
mohammad

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 8:36 PM, Jeff Prucher <jeff at metaweb.com> wrote:

>  This is an excellent idea!  Here are a few thoughts:
>
> 1) Simplest first -- the unit for the Energy property should probably be
> kilocalories, since that's what it actually is.
>

Good catch, I just fixed it, thanks very much.

>
> 2) The name of the topic should ideally be the name of the product (or a
> version thereof). E.g., "Kellogg's Corn Flakes, 18 oz." so that other users
> can find them and link to them. (In this case, say if they were trying to
> model the product lines of cereal companies.)
>

 That makes sense, but I had two worries and I'm not sure if they are
ill-founded.

First, Kellog's works well because the company actually has an apostrophe in
the name. But what about a product by Wholefoods? Should it be "Wholefoods'
Corn Flakes" or "Wholefoods Corn Flakest"? And, I guess, does it matter?

Second, is there a need to enforce naming conventions to ensure correct
linking? If so, what is the best way to arrange for this?


> 3) The name of the "retail data" type should probably be something that
> more clearly describes the topics that will use that type -- something like
> "Food product" or "Packaged food" or something like that.
>

Agreed. But also, would that include drinks like milk, or should a different
type be created?

>
> 4) I think it would be great to find a way to make the nutrient information
> more flexible, rather than only providing a handful of properties. Different
> countries are going to require different things on the labels, and it would
> be nice not to have to change the model for every market.  I don't have a
> good idea just off the top of my head, but it's worth thinking about.
>

What I have so far includes all the labels I could find on UK and US
products, apart from RDA. I do not like the RDA because it can change,
whereas the absolute values are constant across time. In other words, if
eventually somebody in the USDA does realize that the RDA should be reduced
given the levels of obesity, or even worse, that the RDA should be tailored
to the individual's exercise levels, all old RDA data would be invalid and
not available for comparison. But using the absolute values would avoid this
problem.

Does what I am saying make sense? At any rate, all I am declaring is that I
would never use the RDA field, not that I would block others from using it.

>
> Jeff Prucher
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>  *From:* data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com [mailto:
> data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] *On Behalf Of *Mohammad Al-Ubaydli
> *Sent:* Sunday, August 24, 2008 12:23 PM
> *To:* data-modeling at freebase.com
> *Subject:* [Data-modeling] Modeling nutritional information
>
>  Hi all,
> I am starting a model of nutritional information on food labels and can
> tell that I am doing it wrong even after reading the documentation... Could
> someone help me with this model?
>
> http://www.freebase.com/view/user/idiopathic/nutritional_information
>
> What I want is for someone to easily type in the barcode of a food item and
> get back the full nutritional information. So I made two types, one called
> "Retail data", and the other "Nutritients". The "Nutrients" type includes
> the "Retail data" one.
>
> However, when I try to add a record, it insists on a name. I tried this
> one:
>
>
> http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000008ffa1d8?domain=%2Fuser%2Fidiopathic%2Fnutritional_information
>
> Apart from telling you all what I had for lunch today, this does not seem
> to me like a sustainable naming strategy. The primary key of each entry
> should be its barcode, not the compound name of the product and retailer.
>
> What am I doing wrong, and how should I fix it? (If anyone would like to
> help me fix this, I would be delighted to invite you to administer the
> domain with me of course.)
>
> Many thanks for any help, and my apologies in advance for being such a
> newbie.
> mohammad
>
> Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli
> e me at mo.md
> w www.mo.md
>
>
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