In the database there are a lot of brand name products in some food product categories such as snack crackers but no brand name products in other categories such as canned and frozen vegetables. Why?
Brand name products are included if there are significant differences in the nutrient composition of food products within a category. For example, different brands of potato chips are included in the database because the fatty acid content of chips varies notably across brands. Another reason for including brands relates to how people tend to describe the food. For example, commercial cookies tend to be described by brand name (e.g. Oreo cookie) rather than by generic food description (e.g. chocolate sandwich cookie).
