Rank foods by any nutrient, per 100 g, using USDA FoodData Central. Find the highest-protein or lowest-sodium option in a category before you pick an ingredient or make a claim.
Ranks the first 15 USDA matches for your term. Values per 100 g.
You enter a food term and choose a nutrient and a direction. The tool takes the first 15 matches USDA FoodData Central returns for that term from its generic datasets, loads each full record, and sorts them by the chosen nutrient per 100 g, highest or lowest first. Eleven nutrients are available, from protein and calories to sodium, fiber, calcium, iron and potassium.
This is a ranking of those 15 records, not of the whole database. Which 15 you get depends on how the search orders results for your wording, so "beans", "dry beans" and "canned beans" produce different pools and therefore different winners. Branded products are not included.
A food whose record does not report the selected nutrient is left out of the list rather than sorted as zero. This is why the status line can report fewer than 15 foods ranked.
The alternative would be wrong in a way that matters: a food USDA never measured for sodium would top a "lowest sodium" list. Absent data is not a low value, and a ranking that treated it as one would be unsafe to use for ingredient selection.
Bar lengths are relative to the largest value in the current list - the top food always has a full bar, and every other bar is a proportion of it. They are not scaled to a Daily Value or to any fixed amount, so a full bar in a calcium ranking of breads and a full bar in a calcium ranking of cheeses mean very different quantities.
Very small values are given a minimum visible bar so they do not vanish, which means a short bar can slightly overstate a value close to zero. The figure in the column is the one to read; the bar is for scanning.
The pool usually mixes preparation states - raw, cooked, canned, with or without salt - so check each description before treating two neighbouring rows as alternatives. Ranking by lowest calories tends to favour foods with high water content, which is a property of the form rather than a reason to choose the ingredient.
A top position among 15 search matches is also not evidence that a food is the highest in its category generally. Comparative wording on a label - "more", "less", "higher in" - is regulated, and needs a defined reference food and a qualifying difference. Check any such wording with the claim validator rather than borrowing it from a ranking.
Treat the result as a shortlist. Open the candidates in Nutrition Facts Search to see their portions and %DV, compare the leading two side by side, and then weigh what the ranking cannot show: cost, function, flavour and allergen status.
Once an ingredient is chosen, its effect on the product depends on how much of it the recipe uses. Build the full recipe in the label generator to see what reaches the finished panel.
To judge a sodium value, see how much sodium counts as high and the FDA sodium targets by food category.
Reference information, not legal advice. Requirements change and turn on facts specific to your product - confirm against the current regulation before relying on it.
Finding candidate ingredients by what they contribute: the highest-protein options in a category, the lowest-sodium alternatives, the strongest fiber sources. It is a formulation shortlist rather than a nutrition ranking of foods in general.
No. Rank is per 100 g of the ingredient, not per gram you can actually use. A spice may top a mineral ranking and contribute nothing at its inclusion level, while a bulk ingredient at 40 percent of the formula carries the panel. Always read a ranking against realistic inclusion.
Not by itself. Nutrient content claims are assessed on the finished food per reference amount, not on an ingredient, and the disclosure levels in 21 CFR 101.13(h), above which a claim must carry a disclosure statement, apply to the finished product too. Use the Claim Validator on the final formulation rather than inferring a claim from an ingredient.
Treat cross-category comparisons carefully. Dried and fresh forms of the same food differ by their water content alone, so a dried item will outrank its fresh equivalent on almost every nutrient per 100 g without being nutritionally different once rehydrated. Compare like with like, or compare on a dry-matter basis.
This tool is not tied to one country's rules. What you declare on the label is, and the requirements differ.