Exhaustive measurement of food items in the home using a universal product code scanner

Abstract

Objective: We aimed to develop, test and describe the Exhaustive Home Food Inventory (EHFI), which measures foods in the home using scanning of the universal product code (UPC) and EHFI software to link codes to food identities and energy values.

Design: Observational design with up to three repeated measures in each household yielded a total of 218 inventories.

Setting: Eighty private households in North Carolina.

Subjects: Low-income African-American women with an infant between the ages of 12 and 18 months. Recruitment rate was 71 %.

Results: Approximately 12 200 different food items were successfully recorded using the EHFI method. The average number of food items within a household was 147. The time required for the first measurement in a home declined from 157 to 136 min (P < 0·05) for the first third compared to the last third of homes measured. In the sixty-four households in which three assessments were performed, the time required decreased from 145 to 97 min as did the time per item from 1·10 to 0·73 min.

Conclusions: It is feasible to record all foods and drinks in the home using UPC scanning. Further development and enhancement of databases linking UPC to food identification, nutrients and other information are needed.