FoodData Central

USDA FoodData Central is a comprehensive food composition database and REST API providing nutritional data for over 600,000 foods. The service covers multiple distinct data types including Foundation Foods, SR Legacy, Survey Foods (FNDDS), Branded Foods, and Experimental Foods. All data is released under CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain) and the API is free to use with a data.gov API key. FoodData Central is operated by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and receives twice-annual updates for Foundation Foods and monthly updates for Branded Foods.

FoodData Central publishes 1 API on the APIs.io network: FDC API. Tagged areas include Food, Nutrition, USDA, Government, and Health.

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 10 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

41.5/100 thin ▼ -6.2 Agent 34/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6

AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try

1 APIs

FoodNutritionUSDAGovernmentHealthDietNutrientsPublic Domain

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6

Composite quality — 41.5/100 · thin

Contract Quality 15.7 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 5.7 / 20

Commercial Clarity 7.9 / 20

Operational Transparency 2.1 / 13

Governance 7.0 / 12

Discoverability 6.9 / 10

Agent readiness — 34/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

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

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/fooddata: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 1

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

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Fooddata Rate Limits

0 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

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

JSON Schema 3

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

Examples 3

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

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 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 4

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Contact

FAQ

ChangeLog

RateLimits

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

About

About

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

DataDownload

DataDownload

Source (apis.yml)

aid: fooddata
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/fooddata/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
name: FoodData Central
kind: government
description: USDA FoodData Central is a comprehensive food composition database and REST API providing nutritional data for
  over 600,000 foods. The service covers multiple distinct data types including Foundation Foods, SR Legacy, Survey Foods
  (FNDDS), Branded Foods, and Experimental Foods. All data is released under CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain) and the API
  is free to use with a data.gov API key. FoodData Central is operated by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and
  receives twice-annual updates for Foundation Foods and monthly updates for Branded Foods.
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: high
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/fooddata.png
tags:
- Food
- Nutrition
- USDA
- Government
- Health
- Diet
- Nutrients
- Public Domain
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: fooddata: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-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: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/fooddata-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/fooddata-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/fooddata-authentication.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/
- 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-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/fooddata-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/fooddata-finops.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

FoodData Central

Kin Score

APIs 1

FoodData Central FDC API

Pricing Plans 1

Fooddata Plans Pricing

Rate Limits 1

Fooddata Rate Limits

FinOps 1

Fooddata Finops

Semantic Vocabularies 1

Fooddata Context

Spectral Rules 1

FoodData Central API Rules

JSON Schema 3

FoodItem

FoodSearchCriteria

SearchResult

Examples 3

Get Food By Fdc Id

Get Foods Batch

Search Foods

Security Posture 2

Fooddata Authentication

Fooddata Domain Security

Agentic Access 1

Fooddata Agentic Access

Resources