Nutrient Search: Find foods highest (or lowest) in certain nutrients
During our recent focus group lunches with ND users, several mentioned that they wished there were a way to search for foods by specific criteria, such as "foods high in magnesium" or "foods low in selenium." As a matter of fact, we have a tool that will do just that.
You can access the Nutrient Search Tool under "Tools" in the main navigation.
To find foods that are high or low in any nutrient, ND's nutrient search tool is the place to go. For example, I used the nutrient search tool to create this list of foods that contain the least amount of phosphorus per 100 grams. It might be even more helpful to narrow your search to specific food groups. For example, here is a list of dairy products that are lowest in phosphorus per 100 grams. (Dairy products can be a significant dietary source of phosphorus.)
But the nutrient search tool is even more powerful than that.
You can search for several nutrients at once. For example, here is a list of dairy products that are lowest in phosphorus, sodium, and potassium.
And I'll go you one better! The nutrient search tool also allows you to search for foods that are low in certain nutrients but high in others. For example, here is a list of vegetables that are lowest in phosphorus, sodium, and potassium but highest in calcium. Pretty cool, huh?
One last tip about the nutrient search tool: You'll see that you have the option of searching by 100-gram servings or 200-calorie servings. I usually find that a 100-gram serving is the most useful measure, especially when I'm searching across multiple food groups, because it's more likely to represent a typical serving size than a 200-calorie serving is. (Do you have any idea how much spinach it takes to make up a 200-calorie serving?!) If you are searching for very calorie-dense foods, like fats and oils, the 200-calorie serving size might be more useful.
For more tips, see also this post: How to use the Nutrient Search Tool (better) and this one: 100 grams versus 200 calories.
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Posted by: FamilyNutritionist | Nov 21, 2008 3:29:48 PM
And wouldn't it be great to be able to search for foods with the greatest Inflammation Rating? I think that's a useful search. It could help someone make an obvious replacement like sweetpotato for potato, or maybe a less obvious one, like strips of red pepper for green bean. I'm sure there used to be a way to search for that. Oh wait, here it is: all we need is a link to
http://www.nutritiondata.com/foods-000992000000000000000.html.
