Define Exchange list vs. Food composition tables for menu planning?
A dietician is frequently expected to make quick, yet reasonably accurate estimation of the nutritive value of diets or calculate diets that must be controlled for one or more nutrients. The nutritive value may be calculated from the Food Composition Tables (given in the Nutritive Value of Indian Foods by Gopalan et. al., NIN, Hyderabad). By 1940s, dieticians and physicians were aware that Food Composition Tables used to calculate therapeutic diets were cumbersome, time-consuming and needlessly precise and that the dietician does not have the time to calculate for each day the energy and nutrient composition of the food required to fulfil the dietary prescription. Thus, an Exchange List was evolved.