Main steps in TDS

To define the population of interest (infants, children, adults, elderly)
To identify the core foods using national consumption surveys and estimate their intake by the different populations of interest
To sample the selected foods, prepare them „as usually consumed by the population‟ (i.e. prepared and cooked as by the average consumer) and pool relevant food groups
To analyse pooled samples for the selected nutrients and contaminants
To match consumption data and the analytical data to assess nutrient intakes and exposure to contaminants

(Pennington and Hernandez 2002; Egan et al. 2007, Sirot et al 2009)