FoodData Central

National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference

FoodData Central publishes 2 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including FDC API, and 1 more. Tagged areas include Health and Public APIs.

The FoodData Central catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

FoodData Central’s developer surface includes authentication, documentation, developer portal, signup flow, FAQ, changelog, and 18 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

30.8/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 21/100 agent aware Front door AI 1/6 silent saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-13 · rubric v0.28.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try

1 published contract

Health Public APIs

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-13 · rubric v0.28.0

Composite quality — 30.8/100 · thin

Contract Quality 10.4 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 4.7 / 15

Access Clarity 2.6 / 15

Operational Transparency 2.1 / 10

Contract Governance 0.9 / 9

Discoverability 3.5 / 8

Regulatory Posture 1.3 / 15

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 21/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 0 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Health regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship Ask about this →
Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented) Ask about this →
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes Ask about this →
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0 Ask about this →
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document Ask about this →
Delegated User Identity +6 pts — a served discovery document listing authorization_code in grant_types_supported (served), else an oauth2 authorizationCode flow or openIdConnect declared in an OpenAPI (documented) Ask about this →

9 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Access Clarity scores 17.0 — up to +16.6 composite points Ask about this →
Developer Ergonomics scores 31.0 — up to +13.8 composite points Ask about this →
Contract Quality scores 55.2 — up to +11.2 composite points Ask about this →

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

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Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/fooddata-central/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/fooddata-central to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Standards implemented 1

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 2

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

FoodData Central

National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference

FoodData Central FDC API

endpoints to retrieve nutrient data

Open Collections 1

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Food Data Central FDC API

OPEN COLLECTION

FoodData Central API pricing

Not yet checked against FoodData Central's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-06-13; confirm before you rely on a figure. A free plan or tier is listed.

Plan	Price
Demo Key	Free
Standard (Free)	Free
High Volume (Custom)	Free

Plan details, limits and sources →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

FoodData Central Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

FoodData Central Rate Limits

6 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

FoodData Central Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Fooddata Central Context

14 classes · 39 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs. Counts are the severity each rule declares, not results of running them.

FoodData Central — jsonschema rules

6 rules · 4 warn-severity 2 info-severity

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 3

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

FoodItem

0 properties

JSON SCHEMA

FoodSearchCriteria

7 properties

JSON SCHEMA

SearchResult

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Examples 3

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Get Food By Fdc Id

4 fields

EXAMPLE

Get Foods Batch

4 fields

EXAMPLE

Search Foods

4 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

FoodData Central Authentication

apiKey · 1 scheme

SECURITY

FoodData Central Domain Security

TLSv1.2 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access (API Evangelist recommendations) 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

FoodData Central Agentic Access

9 operations · 3 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 2

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Portal

Portal

Signup

Signup

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

Agent Surfaces 2

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Access & Security 5

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Operate 5

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Contact

FAQ

ChangeLog

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 4

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

FinOps

Plans

FinOps

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

About

About

Other 3

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

PublicAPIsListing

PublicAPIsListing

DataDownload

DataDownload

Source (apis.yml)

aid: fooddata-central
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  gated: none
  gated_source:
  - onboarding
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-13'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/fooddata-central.png
name: FoodData Central
description: National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/
specificationVersion: '0.23'
created: '2026-05-28'
modified: '2026-05-28'
x-source: public-apis/public-apis
x-category: Health
x-tier: 3
x-tier-reason: bulk-registered-from-public-apis
tags:
- Health
- Public APIs
apis:
- name: FoodData Central
  description: National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
  humanURL: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/
  tags:
  - Health
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/
- aid: fooddata-central-central:fooddata-fdc-api
  name: FoodData Central FDC API
  description: endpoints to retrieve nutrient data
  humanURL: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/api-guide
  baseURL: https://api.nal.usda.gov/fdc/v1
  tags:
  - FDC
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/fooddata-central-fdc-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/api-guide
  - type: Signup
    url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/api-key-signup
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/fooddata-central-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/
- type: PublicAPIsListing
  url: https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/fooddata-central-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/fooddata-central-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/fooddata-central-authentication.yml
- type: Documentation
  url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/api-guide
- type: Portal
  url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/
- type: Signup
  url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/api-key-signup
- type: About
  url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/about-us
- type: Contact
  url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/contact
- type: FAQ
  url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/faq
- type: DataDownload
  url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/download-datasets
- type: ChangeLog
  url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/log
- type: X
  url: https://twitter.com/usda_ars
- type: Plans
  url: plans/fooddata-central-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/fooddata-central-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/fooddata-central-finops.yml
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/fooddata-central-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/fooddata-central-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/fooddata-central-authentication.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/fooddata-central-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/fooddata-central-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/fooddata-central-finops.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

FoodData Central API — frequently asked questions

Does FoodData Central have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 2 APIs from FoodData Central, including FoodData Central and FoodData Central FDC API.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the FoodData Central API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 1 OpenAPI specification for FoodData Central, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the FoodData Central API?

FoodData Central uses bearer-token authentication (apiKey · 1 scheme). The details are profiled on APIs.io as FoodData Central Authentication.

How much does the FoodData Central API cost?

APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for FoodData Central, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the FoodData Central API ready for AI agents?

FoodData Central has a Kin Score of 30.8 out of 100 (thin) and an Agent Readiness score of 21.0 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-13.

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