Abstract
On August 3, 1987 (Federal Register, Vol. 52, No. 148, p.28690-1), the Final Rule issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on The Nutrition Labeling of Food; Calorie Content made mention for the first time of dietary fiber. It allowed the manufacturer, when calculating the appropriate declaration of calorie content of food, to subtract the carbohydrates attributable to nondigestible fiber (total dietary fiber determined by AOAC method 985.29) from the total carbohydrate content of the food. This was later amended to exclude only the insoluble dietary fiber from the carbohydrate content before calculating calories. When mandatory nutrition labeling of dietary fiber became effective in 1993, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture specifically incorporated the AOAC methods into the language of the food regulations (1). For more than 15 years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture recognized and mandated through the nutrition labeling laws that the material that precipitates in 78% ethanol in the AOAC method for dietary fiber is dietary fiber. Since that time several methods have been approved for measuring dietary fiber by the AOAC. They are 1. AOAC Method 985.29 (1985) - Prosky, L, Asp, N-G., Furda, I., DeVries, J.W., Schweizer, T.F. and Harland, B.F..[Total dietary fiber in foods]; 2. AOAC Method 991.42 (1992) - Prosky, L., Asp, N-G., Schweizer, T.F., DeVries, J.W. and Furda, I. [Insoluble dietary fiber in foods]; 3. AOAC Method 993.16 (1992) - Prosky, L., Asp, N-G., Schweizer, T.F., DeVries, J.W. and Furda, I. [Soluble dietary fiber in foods]; 4. AOAC Method 991.43 (1992) - Lee, S.C., DeVries, J.W. and Prosky, L. [Total, soluble, and insoluble dietary fiber in foods]; 5. AOAC Method 992.16 (1993) - Mongeau, R. and Brassard, R.. [Total dietary fiber in foods]; 6. AOAC Method 993.21 (1994) - Li, B. and Cardozo, M.S. [Total dietary fiber in foods with little or no starch]; 7. AOAC Method 994.13 (1995) - Theander, 0., Aman, P., Westerlund, E., Andersson, R. and Pettersson, D. [Total dietary fiber in foods as the sum of neutral sugar residues, uronic acid residues and Klason lignin]; 8. AOAC Method 997.08 (1997) - Hoebregs, H. [Inulin and oligofructose]; 9. AOAC Method 999.03 (1999) - McCleary, B.V., Murphy, A., and Mugford, D.C. [Oligofructans and fructan oligosaccharides], 10. AOAC Method 2000. 1 1(2000) - Craig, S.A.S., Holden, J.F., and Khaled, M.J. [Polydextrose], 11.. AOAC Method 2001.02 (2001) - de Slegte, J. [Transgalactooligosaccharides], and 12. AOAC Method 2001.03 (2001) - Gordon, D.T. and Ohkuma, K. [Total dietary fiber and low molecular weight resistant maltodextrin] (2).
