Nutrients in Our Food

Public

If you ever find yourself wondering what nutrients are in different foods you might want to take a look at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Nutrient database. 

It provides a wealth of information on over 7,500 specific food items and details of the nutrients they contain down to the many different minerals, vitamins, types of fats, carbohydrates, proteins and various amino acids.

There are two very useful ways to look at this information on their website.

Find nutrients in a specific food item

You can search for a specific food item and see all the nutrients it contains at What's In The Foods You Eat: Find a food

For example you can look up "pistachio" nuts, dry roasted or some other food item and see the list of different nutrients measured in that food item.

Reports by Single Nutrient

Another interesting view of the nutrient information is available at http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=18877

Here is a table of many of the nutrients with links to reports of food items containing these nutrients shown either alphabetically or what is more interesting sorted by the content of this single nutrient. 

For example you might be interested in which food items have the most Vitamin B12 or a lot of Magnesium.  The reports sorted by Nutrient Content show this. 

Even though the reports are pdf files of as many as 26 pages, the first page or two reveals the food items richest in the nutrient. 

This makes for interesting browsing and can be helpful when looking at the foods you eat most and others you could choose.