science

USDA National Nutrient Database

USDA National Nutrient Database is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand USDA National Nutrient Database rather than just read about it. In short: The USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (renamed in 2019 to FoodData Central) is a database produced by the United States Department of Agriculture that provides the nutritional content of many generic and proprietary-branded foods. Released in August 2015 and revised every two years, the database contains data on several thousand foods and dozens of components in foods, including macronutrients a…

Key takeaways

USDA National Nutrient Database belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect USDA National Nutrient Database to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of USDA National Nutrient Database from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (renamed in 2019 to FoodData Central) is a database produced by the United States Department of Agriculture that provides the nutritional content of many generic and proprietary-branded foods. Released in August 2015 and revised every two years, the database contains data on several thousand foods and dozens of components in foods, including macronutrients and micronutrients. New releases occur every two years. The database may be searched online, queried through a representational state transfer API, or downloaded. FoodData Central includes five data types: Foundation Foods, Experimental Foods, Legacy Foods ("SR Legacy"), Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies 2021-2023 (FNDDS 2021-2023), and the USDA Global Branded Food Products Database (Branded Foods).

FoodData Central FoodData Central is USDA's integrated data system that contains five types of data containing information on food and nutrient profiles:

Standard Reference, using earlier approaches to determining nutrient profiles of foods in the marketplace, provides a comprehensive list of values for nutrients and food components that are derived from calculations and analyses. Foundation Foods includes nutrient values as well as extensive underlying metadata on commercially available foods. Experimental Foods currently links to relevant agricultural research data from multiple sources, such as the Agricultural Collaborative Research Outcomes System (AgCROS). Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS) provides nutrient values for the foods and beverages reported in What We Eat in America, the dietary intake component of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The USDA Global Branded Food Products Database contains nutrient data that appear on branded and private label foods provided by the food industry, from ILSI, GS1 US, 1WorldSync, Label Insight, and University of Maryland's Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

References

External links USDA FoodData Central

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with USDA National Nutrient Database

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what USDA National Nutrient Database claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to USDA National Nutrient Database before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about USDA National Nutrient Database ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of USDA National Nutrient Database

In research: USDA National Nutrient Database appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses USDA National Nutrient Database in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: USDA National Nutrient Database is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2015 in the United States, Database stubs, Food and drink in the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for USDA National Nutrient Database outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study USDA National Nutrient Database in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what USDA National Nutrient Database means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain USDA National Nutrient Database out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is USDA National Nutrient Database in simple terms?

Why does USDA National Nutrient Database matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study USDA National Nutrient Database?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on USDA National Nutrient Database.