19th Australian Total Diet Survey
The Australian Total Diet Survey, formerly known as the Australian Market Basket Survey, is Australia' s most comprehensive assessment of consumers' dietary exposure to pesticide residues and contaminants. The survey is conducted approximately every two years, and this is the 19th such survey.
The survey estimates the level of dietary exposure for Australian consumers to a range of pesticide residues and contaminants through the testing of food samples representative of the total diet. These samples were prepared ' table-ready ' , for example, the potatoes were cooked.
The survey also provides valuable background data that can be used for the development of food regulatory measures. It is used by the National Registration Authority for Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals when considering registration of chemical products. Indeed, data from previous surveys were used by ANZFA during the recent Review of the Food Standards Code and were integral to the development of standards in the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code.
A number of changes have been made by ANZFA in the conduct of the 19th survey. The most obvious change is to the format and presentation of the survey, where a shorter report has been produced with more detailed information provided on the ANZFA web site. There have also been a number of changes to the methods for estimating dietary exposure, and in the use of the latest food consumption data derived from the 1995 National Nutrition Survey (NNS).
In addition to the dietary exposures calculated using results for the 19th ATDS, dietary exposures were also estimated using analytical results from the 1996 AMBS (18th survey) and fo