Background: Household or individual food consumption measurement is an issue in the South-Kivu province, DRC. Nutrition professionals and researchers are struggling to perform a 24h recall or any other assessment method due to lack of information regarding how to estimate the food intake of their respondents in a context where the local food contents as used in the markets are not labeled and their weight and/or volume are not known. Moreover, many housekeepers are illiterate, they can’t use weighing scales for the foods consumed, and therefore they can’t provide information about the consumed food amounts.
Objective: In this study, we suggest an original approach for improving the food consumption assessment by converting the local food containers in international system units such as grams. This would facilitate the nutrition consultation and prescription and better understand the nutrition situation at clinical and community levels.
Design: In this three step approach, the food containers used in local markets for specific foods were measured full (bombed) of the related foods. 3 repeated measures were obtained for each container on the spot in the market, and the average weight was calculated and reported in a table. We describe how to use the collected data in a three step procedure, including 1) How to conduct the interview 2) How to use the local food container measurement data in estimating the food consumption of the respondents in grams and 3) How to use a food composition table to estimate energy and nutrients intakes.
Conclusion and recommendations: The proposed approach is to be understood as a first step in in the resolution of the challenge of food consumption assessment. The next step would be the production of a brochure listing all the food container measures and their conversion in international unit system, to be utilized by the nutrition professionals, researchers and students. This approach might be extended to other regions of DRC and other African countries as they all face same problem.