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Food and nutritional sciences: Key resources

A guide to finding information in food and nutritional sciences. Includes links to key resources and sources of help.

Use the databases listed on this page to find relevant information on topics in food and nutritional sciences. They will give you access to both primary and secondary sources of information.

  • Primary sources - these are first hand accounts of research that has been undertaken and written by the researchers themselves.
  • Secondary sources - describe, summarize, or discuss information or details originally presented in another source. Books are usually secondary sources. As are review articles which summarise the current state of the knowledge on a topic (many databases allow you to restrict search results to this type of article). A more specialised secondary source are systematic reviews which use the existing literature to try to answer a specific question, often including a meta-analysis of the all the studies included in the relevant articles.

Key databases

Specialist databases for specific topic areas or types of information

Resources for finding articles on business and marketing

Market research (UK)

These resources cover UK market information only.

Market research (global)

Company info

Key database

Additional resources

Foodlaw-Reading

THE portal for sources of food law compiled by Dr David Jukes from the University of Reading. Includes links to the main sources of legislation and key legal topics including additives, flavourings and labelling.

UK legislation

LexisLibrary and Westlaw UK provide the text of Acts and Statutory Instruments in force. The UK's Government's official Legislation.gov.uk website provides free access to original and revised versions of legislation, but this is not as up-to-date as LexisLibrary and Westlaw UK.

Legislation from other countries

This can be harder to find. The following are useful portals.

For more detailed information on finding legislation consult the Law guide:

Key database

Additional resources

See also our guide to finding statistics:

Sources of specific types of information

For other sources see our guide to finding statistics:

These resources might help with experimental protocols.

A standard is an officially approved specification covers requirements for the properties, dimensions, performance, qualities and testing of products and services. Standards are particularly useful for methods of analysis.

Key websites

Getting items not held at Reading

Map of the south of the UKOur Inter-Library Loans service can get articles, books and other publications not held at Reading from other libraries (usually from the British Library).

For more information see our webpages:

Searching for 'Global South' publications to 'decolonise' academic work

To present fairer, balanced academic work, it is important to include academic literature from around the world, representing all backgrounds. However, it can be difficult to find Global South examples from within English language databases with currently more Global North examples. This tab lists alternative search terms and strategies that might help us pick out Global South material. Use the other tab in this box to try useful resources and database features.

Definitions: Global South is a term currently used to mean countries of  Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Global North is used to refer to countries of North America and Europe but also Australia and New Zealand, with stong economies and influence.

Remember to include searching tricks as used in examples below:

  • "speech marks" to search for phrases
  • truncate to retrieve alternate endings: Africa* retrieves Africa, African, Africaans
  • Use wildcard (often ? or #, but check database Help) for alternate letter spellings or plurals.
  • List alternatives in brackets with OR in between

Geographical terms

  • Include individual country or regional names that might occur in reference records. 
    • For example: Africa* OR “East Africa” OR “West Africa” OR ​“sub-Saharan” OR [Individual country names]​
       
  • Country grouping terms and acronyms include:
    • BRICS OR Brazil OR Russia OR India OR China OR "South Africa"
    • MENA OR "Middle East" OR "North Africa"
       
  • Development-related terms and acronyms include:
    • LEDC OR "Less Economically Developed Countries"
    • LDC OR "Least developed countries"
    • LIC OR "Low Income Countries"
    • LMIC OR "Low Middle Income Countries"
    • "Medium/Low Human Development"
    • "Unicef Programme Countries"
    • Outdated terms: When searching for older material, you might include terms used historically but now thought derogatory. For instance: "developing countries" or "third world countries" (that is, neither 'Western' or 'Soviet' powers).
       
  • Use 'local' place names, as used by people who live there (such as “South-East Asia”​) rather than, or maybe as well as, names allocated by people from another part of the world (such as "the Far East").
     
  • Exclude country names with NOT, using brackets to ensure the correct term is excluded.
    • For example: (Africa* OR “East Africa”) NOT Kenya
       
  • International terms: Only if an article is especially addressing international issues would it use words you can search for like
    • world OR "world-wide" OR international OR global
       
  • If addressing an imbalance of power/privilege, articles might use terms such as:
    • “post-colonial*” OR gobali?ation [if ? is wildcard standing for s or z]
    • developing OR "less-developed" or underdeveloped

US/UK spelling and vocabulary

Be sure to incorporate in your searches different UK and American English terms and spellings, so as not to omit research from countries using one or the other language form. List alternatives with OR or insert a 'wildcard' or truncation term. Check the help on the database you are searching to find out if wildcards are supported and which symbol to use. For example:

  • sidewalk OR pavement OR footpath
  • organisation OR organization - an alterative search could be organi?ation  [If ? is wildcard standing for s or z]

Objective or subjective terms

Search for objective or even biased terms. For instance:

  • curriculum AND (change OR reform OR fail*)

Decolonising literature searching, a detailed guide from Lancaster University Library, may provide further ideas 

Databases with regional features

Use the Scopus 'Researcher Discovery' tab and limit by country of origin to connect with target areas and people.

Web of Science alows you to filter results by 'Countries/Regions'.

'Global south' resources

Searching PubMed? Install the LibKey Nomad extension for quick access to full-text

PubMed is a great place to search for articles and gives access to many freely available PDFs, but it doesn't show which ones you have access to via the Library. Install the LibKey Nomad browser extension for quick access to articles we have. It will display a 'Download PDF' button under each article accessible via the University:

The 'Download PDF' button displayed under an article available from the University.

Doing a literature search

This playlist shows you how to prepare for and perform a literature search. The first video introduces literature searches and their role. The second video covers using the search operators AND and OR to create a search statement, and explains the role of wildcards and truncation in constructing a comprehensive search. This information is also available in written guides - see the links below. 

If you are unable to view these videos on YouTube they are also available on YuJa or Stream (University username and password required):

Planning your own search

Use the template below to help plan out your own literature search - identifying keywords and synonyms. There's also an example to help guide you and an example of adapting a search for different databases.

Related guides

Support for searching FSTA on Web of Science

The Food Science and Technology Abstracts database (FSTA) is produced by IFIS (International Food Information Service). They have produced a range of support materials to help you make the most of this valuable resource for research in food and nutrition.

Creating a comprehensive search on PubMed (using field tags)

Most health-related systematic reviews will involve a search on PubMed. But do you know how to create the most effective search strategy to take advantage of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)? This video created by John Hopkins University explains all the steps involved in ensuring your search is as comprehensive as possible.

Doing a systematic review

We have produced a detailed guide to doing a systematic review:

There's also a playlist of five videos for an introduction to the key steps in doing a systematic review:

  • Video 1 - getting started, an overview of the process.
  • Video 2 - covers the first four steps in doing a systematic review, including creating a protocol and searching for literature.
  • Video 3 - covers the fifth and sixth steps in doing a systematic review. It focuses on using Desktop EndNote to manage references and screening the literature.
  • Video 4 - covers writing it up and creating a PRISMA diagram.
  • Video 5 - a more detailed video on using EndNote for managing references collected for a systematic review.

If you are unable to view these videos on YouTube they are also available on YuJa (University username and password required):

Further guidance on doing a systematic review in food

The International Food Information Service have put together a detailed guide on doing a systematic review in the fields of food and health. Use this for additional guidance if doing a systematic review:

Guidance for research postgraduates