Abstract
In the “Standard Table of Food Composition in Japan” (Fourth revised edition, 1982), “available energy of foods”was newly estimated with values derived from Japanese young men and women, according essentially to the method of Atwater with slight modification by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization).
However, in the standard tables, in contrast to the Atwater's method, “true digestibility”of food proteins is used instead of“apparent digestibility”for the calculation of the available energy of food proteins.
When the“true digestibility”is used, energy loss in the fecal proteins must be taken into account for the calculation of available energy of food proteins in addition to the urinary loss of energy.
The urinary loss of energy also must be modified.
We present in this paper a modified calculation for the available energy of food proteins using the data from the Resources Council, Science and Technology Agency, Japan, and the significance of the theoretical differences is discussed.
Estimated values of the available energy of food proteins by this modified calculation, were only slightly lower than those in the standard table.
