A database of vegetarian foods

The recent food scares combined with the wide body of literature suggesting improved health status of vegetarians has apparently fuelled the growth in the number of vegetarians and semi/demi vegetarians. This expansion has been met by a considerable growth in the vegetarian convenience food market. A database of vegetarian convenience foods has been created which shows that there is a large and increasing number of vegetarian convenience foods available which show great within‐product ranges in terms of nutritional composition. The database indicates that vegetarian convenience foods are often high in fat and saturates and their consumption would not assist in meeting current dietary targets.