2.2.3. Food Pattern Analysis

We also applied PCA to the food items to confirm the components found during the nutrient pattern analysis. Components with eigenvalues greater than 1 and that accounted for at least 1% of the variation were retained. The highest absolute loading within each component ranged between 0.07 and 0.16. Hence, absolute loadings greater than 0.05 were used to interpret the component. The PCs identified by the food item analysis were termed 'food patterns (FPs)'.

Trace values (values below the limit of detection) accounted for 1.2% of the data and were imputed with half of the limit of detection for each nutrient [24]. Results were considered significant for *p* < 0.05 and Bonferroni-adjusted significance levels were used to account for multiple testing. All analyses were done in Stata version 16 (StataCorp, College Station, TX, USA) and R (available at https://www.R-project.org/, accessed on 9 September 2021).
