In this study, 6,844 food records were collected during three years (1979-1982) from 106 volunteer Wisconsin women, aged 35-65 years. Subjects recorded all intake of food, and vitamin/mineral supplements on a structured, precoded form. One-, two-, three-, and seven-day records were compared with usual intake of calcium, kilocalories, vitamin A, and vitamin C. Usual intake was calculated using 37-72 food records per subject. Estimates of group means from a small number of records were not significantly different from mean usual intake (p greater than 0.05). Correlations with usual intake ranged from 0.43-0.64 and from 0.71-0.90 for the one day and the seven-day estimates, respectively. For the one-day record, 43-67% of subjects were correctly classified to the extreme quintiles of intake, 52-76% for the seven-day record. Classification was least good for vitamin A, better for other nutrients with lower intraindividual variance. However, overall agreement with usual classification of assignment to quintiles even with the seven-day record was less than 55% for all four nutrients. Effects at extremes of intake might be more easily analyzed than dose-response relations.