Assessing beverage consumption - enough to make you drink?

What we drink has a potentially large impact on our nutrient intake and overall nutrition and health status. Some beverages are energy-dense and nutrient-poor, others deliver alcohol and other drugs, and others can be relatively nutrient-dense. Estimating and assessing the contribution of beverages to nutritional status is an ongoing nutrition assessment challenge. In this issue, Muckelbauer et al. report on a validation study of a selfcompleted 24 h recall questionnaire compared with a 24 h weighed record to assess beverage consumption among schoolchildren aged 7 to 9 years. This paper highlights the difficulties in validating beverage consumption from self-report instruments.