Searching for Foods

The food database holds more than six million foods from over 150 countries.

Searching it is free and needs no account; signing in adds nutrient figures,

personal scores and the ability to save and log what you find.

On the web

Open Foods from the navigation

Type into the search box — a name, a brand or an ingredient

Results update as you type, with the count above them and pages below

Click a food to open its page

Each result shows the food's name, its calories, protein and sodium per 100 g,

and, when you are signed in, your personal score badge and a heart to save it.

Signed out, the nutrient figures read "Nutrient values hidden — sign in to

view".

Narrowing the results

Click Filters to add any of:

Category — the food group

Good for Health Condition — keeps foods rated Good or Excellent for that condition; only foods that carry a stored suitability rating qualify, so the list is short

Region and Cuisine Type — where the food or dish is from

Advanced: Sort by Nutrient — pick a nutrient and a direction, and the results become a ranking, richest first or lowest first, grouped by category

Active filters appear as chips above the results, each with its own remove

button, and Clear all filters empties them.

One entry per food

By default the database shows one entry per food name, keeping the entry with

the most nutrient data, so "cheddar cheese" is one row rather than four hundred

brands of it. A row that stands for several entries says how many variants it

covers. Click Show all brands to see every entry instead — this is the

switch to use when you want a specific brand's own figures.

Sorting

Two sort orders sit above the results. Relevance is the database's own

match order, which prefers USDA reference foods over survey and branded entries

when their names match equally. Best for you re-ranks the page by your

personal score, and is available once you are signed in and the page has scored

the foods; see Food Health Ratings.

Your own history

Signed in, the search page also shows your recently viewed foods, your recent

searches with a clear-history control, popular searches, and a tray of the

foods you log most often for one-tap re-logging at your usual portion.

On the phone

Open the Foods tab

Tap the search bar to open Search foods

Choose a source: the regional-dish catalogue or the full database

Type, then tap a result

The regional catalogue is a hand-built set of dishes with condition ratings and

special markers such as purine and oxalate levels. Tap Filters to narrow it

by Region:, Category: or Diet: (halal, kosher, vegan, vegetarian).

The full database offers cuisine chips and Sort by Nutrient.

The Foods tab itself lets you browse by nutrient, by region, by category, by

cuisine and by ethical diet without typing, and carries the Scan barcode

and Scan nutrition label buttons.

Smart diet search

Diet Search in the web navigation takes a goal rather than a food name —

"low potassium diet", "gout diet", "high iron" — and answers with foods to

emphasize and foods to limit for it, with a short list of tips. It is free, it

needs no account, and it allows 30 searches a minute from one connection.

Can't find a food?

Try the generic name ("apple, raw") before the brand, or the brand before the generic name — both are indexed

Try the cooked or raw form: "spinach, cooked" and "spinach, raw" are separate entries

Scan the package: see Barcode Scanning

Add it yourself: open My Foods and click Add food. A custom food is logged like any database food, and it appears in your search results under "From My Foods"

There is no request-a-food form. My Foods is the answer for a home dish, a

local product or anything the database lacks.

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Related Articles:

Understanding Nutrient Data

Favorites & Collections

Barcode Scanning