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CFSAN/Office of Food Safety*
April 2001; Updated July 2008†
The Total Diet Study (TDS), sometimes called the market basket study, is an ongoing FDA program that determines levels of various contaminants and nutrients in foods. From this information, dietary intakes of those analytes by the U.S. population can be estimated. Since its inception in 1961 as a program to monitor for radioactive contamination of foods, the TDS has grown to encompass additional analytes, including pesticide residues, industrial chemicals, and toxic and nutrient elements. A unique aspect of the TDS is that foods are prepared as they would be consumed (table-ready) prior to analysis, so the analytical results provide the basis for realistic estimates of the dietary intake of these analytes.
This website provides an overview of FDA's TDS and access to analytical results (data summaries as well as individual results for each food) from mid-1991 to the present. (Data prior to this time are not available in electronic format.) Other information (including the list of TDS foods, sample collection sites and dates, and the TDS diets used for calculating dietary intakes) are also provided on this website.
Individuals who intend to use either the data summaries or individual analytical results are urged to review all the information provided here to ensure a good understanding of the study and the data.
Browse the links below to find more specific information on:
*Previously Office of Plant and Dairy Foods.
†This document was originally issued April 2001, and updated June 2003, September 2004, September 2005, August 2006, March 2007 and July 2008.
