Food Composition Tables in Southeast Asia: The Contribution of the SMILING Project.

Objectives Food composition data are key for many nutrition related activities in research, planning and policy. Combatting micronutrient malnutrition among women and young children using sustainable food based approaches, as aimed at in the SMILING project, requires high quality food composition data. Methods In order to develop capacity and to align procedures for establishing, updating and assessing the quality of key nutrient data in the food composition tables in Southeast Asia, a detailed roadmap was developed to identify and propose steps for this.

Residues of 2-hydroxy-3-phenylpyrazine, a degradation product of some β-lactam antibiotics, in environmental water in Vietnam.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become a serious problem worldwide, caused in part by the excessive use and discharge of antibiotics into the environment. Ampicillin (ABPC) is a widely used antibiotic. However, this chemical rapidly decomposes in water containing divalent cations like Ca and Mg, thus, detection of ABPC in environmental water is difficult.