Dietary exposures to nitrate in the UK

Dietary exposures to nitrate have been estimated for two different groups of UK consumers. The daily dietary exposure of the general population was estimated from the UK 1997 Total Diet study to be 52 mg/day. Vegetables contributed approximately 70% to this total dietary exposure. Dietary exposure estimates for adult consumers of vegetables commonly eaten in the UK were 93 mg/day and 140 mg/day for mean and 97.5th percentile consumers, respectively. Dietary exposures to nitrate of UK consumers are similar to those in other European countries and are less than the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for nitrate set by the European Commission's Scientific Committee for Food.