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The Dietary Guidelines for Americans [1] recommend moderation in consumption of fat, saturated fatty acids, cholesterol, and sugar along with cnsumption of adequate amounts of starch and fiber. Quantitative data [...], Data from the 1985 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals were used to calculate the contributions of individual foods to women's intakes of energy, protein, carbohydrate, fat, saturated fatty acids, cholesterol, and fiber. We separatred nearly all food mixtures into their constituent ingredients, grouped the ingredients together with similar foods, and examined the contributions of those foods. Yeast breads that were neither whole grain nor higher fiber contributed about 7% of the energy to the diets, which made them the leading source of energy of the foods we examined. The leading sources of protein were animal products: poultry contributed approximately 12%, beef contributed about 19%, cheese contributed about 8%, and pork contributed about 6%. The various fats and oils were the greatest contributors to fat, and cheese was the chief source of saturated fatty acids. Eggs were the major source of cholesterol; they provided around 36% of the total. Two of the top three sources of carbohydrate -- regular soft drinks and sugar -- are composed entirely of simple sugars. Potatoes provided around 11% of the fiber, which made them the leading source of fiber. This article shows that the relative ranking of foods and the contribution of each food depend on the way food codes are combined. Therefore, citing one food as the major source of a particular food component without including documentation of how foods are combined can be misleading. J Am Diet Assoc. 1992; 92:168-174.