FoodData Central (FDC)

The mission of the FoodData Central (FDC) group is to support and expand FDC, USDA’s online integrated food and nutrient data system. The FDC group also promotes efforts to maintain FDC as a worldwide resource for food composition information.

FDC contains five distinct types of data containing information on food and nutrient profiles, each with a unique purpose. Two of the data types—Foundation Foods and Experimental Foods—have never previously been available. Foundation Foods provides nutrient values and extensive underlying metadata on foods available to the U.S. consumer; Experimental Foods link to relevant agricultural research data from multiple sources. FDC also includes three well established data types: the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS), Standard Reference (SR) Legacy, and the USDA Global Branded Food Products Database. In addition, FoodData Central provides links to related external data, including the Dietary Supplement Information Database and the Dietary Supplement Label Database.