Re: [Fsfe-uk] [OT-ish] Government food data

[Alex Hudson]

On Tue, 2005-10-11 at 17:34 +0100, Graham Seaman wrote:
> Yes, I wrote to the FSA first, explaining in some detail what I wanted 
> and why. They sent me a long (and very quick) response, some relevant 
> details from which are:
> 
> "The UK does not hold an online food nutrient databank.  UK food 
> composition tables are published in the McCance & Widdowson's The
> Composition of Foods series."

How nice.

> "As you are aware USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) have an 
> online nutrient database. As you have noted this data is American and will 
> not necessarily be typical of foods eaten in the UK."
> 
> In other words, why would you want the right to write software when 
> you are allowed to pay for commercial software?
> If you want more freedom then sod off to America.

I'm not sure that's even necessarily true. This data is probably subject
to database copyright at least, and while US Govt. works are generally
available to their citizens, I'm not sure that it's generally the case
that foreigners have such access - have you asked the USDA?

Cheers,

Alex.