Where Food Data Comes From

The database is built from published food-composition data, not from

estimates. More than six million entries were imported from the sources below

and deduplicated to about four million distinct foods covering over 150

countries. Every food page names the source its figures came from.

The sources

Three kinds of source, and every one a food can name:

SourceWhat it covers USDA FoodData CentralAbout two million foods: the Foundation, SR Legacy and FNDDS survey reference foods, and the Branded Foods products Open Food FactsAbout four million packaged products from around the world, with barcodes, ingredients and photos Ciqual 2020 (ANSES, France)French foods CoFID 2021 (PHE/OHID, United Kingdom)British foods Canadian Nutrient File 2015 (Health Canada)Canadian foods Fineli (THL, Finland)Finnish foods Indian Food Composition Tables (NIN, India)Indian foods AUSNUT (FSANZ, Australia and New Zealand)Australian and New Zealand foods Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan (MEXT)Japanese foods Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan 2020 (MEXT)The 2020 edition's additional entries Matvaretabellen (Mattilsynet, Norway)Norwegian foods Frida (DTU Fødevareinstituttet, Denmark)Danish foods TACO 4ª edição (NEPA/UNICAMP, Brazil)Brazilian foods West African Food Composition Table 2019 (FAO/INFOODS)West African foods Nepal Food Composition Table 2012Nepali foods Vietnamese Food Composition Table 2007Vietnamese foods ASEAN Food Composition Database 2014South-East Asian foods Kenya Food Composition Tables 2018 (FAO)Kenyan foods MAFOODS 2019 (Malawi Food Composition Table)Malawian foods Ethiopian Food Composition Table 2025 (EPHI)Ethiopian foods Tanzania Food Composition Tables 2023 (Harvard T.H. Chan)Tanzanian foods Uganda Food Composition Table (Hotz et al.)Ugandan foods Caribbean Food Composition Tables 1998 (PAHO/CFNI)Caribbean foods ClapDiet reference catalogueA small seed set of common foods ClapDiet regional-dish catalogueHand-built regional dishes with condition ratings and special markers

The national tables are the published documents themselves — spreadsheets and

PDFs from the institutions named — read into the database once and attributed

row by row.

How the sources are combined

One food, many entries. The same food often appears in several sources. The default search shows one entry per name, keeping the one with the most nutrient data, and Show all brands reveals the rest

One unit. Every figure is stored per 100 g in one unit per nutrient. Sources that report minerals in grams or energy in kilojoules are converted on import

Implausible values are ignored. When a food is scored for you, a nutrient value outside the range that is physically plausible for 100 g of food is left out rather than trusted

Missing stays missing. A nutrient a source did not report is stored as absent and shown as a dash, never filled in from another food

What each food page tells you

The data-source section at the bottom of a food page names the publisher and,

for USDA and Open Food Facts foods, links to the publisher's own page for that

food, so any figure can be checked against its origin. A USDA food shows its

FDC ID; a packaged product shows its barcode.

Known limits

Packaged products change. A recipe can be reformulated after its record was published. When it matters, read the package

Tables age. The national tables carry their edition year in their names; a 2012 table describes 2012 foods

Coverage is uneven. A USDA reference food carries dozens of nutrients; a packaged product often carries only what its label prints; some tables measured a handful

Suitability ratings are partial. Condition ratings exist on the regional dishes and a core set of database foods, not on every entry; see Food Health Ratings

Reporting a wrong figure

There is no report button on a food page. Write to us through the

contact page with the food's name and, if you have it, the FDC ID

or barcode from its data-source section, and what the correct figure is and

where it comes from. Corrections are made against the source, so the origin of

the right number matters as much as the number.

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Related Articles:

Understanding Nutrient Data

Food Health Ratings