US EPA

The National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) of the Office of Research and Development published the Exposure Factors Handbook in 1997 (EPA/600/P-95/002Fa-c). The Handbook provides a summary of the available statistical data on various factors used in assessing human exposure. These factors include: drinking water consumption, soil ingestion, inhalation rates, dermal factors including skin area and soil adherence factors, consumption of fruits and vegetables, fish, meats, dairy products, homegrown foods, breast milk intake, human activity factors, consumer product use, and residential characteristics.

The primary source of information on consumption rates of foods presented in the Handbook is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII). The 1997 Handbook included the data from the 1989-1991CSFII, which were analyzed to generate per capita intake rates for various food items and food groups. The Science Advisory Board in its review of the Exposure Factors Handbook recommended that the Handbook be kept up-to-date and that food consumption data from USDA's most recent national survey be analyzed for an update to the Handbook. The purpose of this report is to present the analysis of the CSFII 1994-96 data for food consumption and to update chapters 9, 11, and 12 of the Exposure Factors Handbook. This analysis provides distributions of food consumption by individuals for a variety of food items, including individual fruits, individual vegetables, dairy products, meats, as well as aggregated categories such as total fruits, total vegetables, total dairy, total meats, and total grains. Results are presented in terms of grams consumed per kilogram of body weight per day. Data are also broken out by region, urbanization, age groups, and sex.