USDA National Nutrient Database, Release 16 (12/05/03)

Mark Thorson said:

I knew USDA kept a database of the nutritional value of foods, but I didn't know what it was
called. Their incompetently designed website certainly did not direct me toward this body of
information -- arguably the most important database they have. After much searching, finally
Google gave me the name of the database, and with that the USDA search tool reluctantly
coughed it up.

The site doesn't have the world's best design, but it's certainly not hard either. In that sense
it's good web IQ test.

Anyone who has any trouble finding things on that site is lacking in search skills, IMO.
You flunked.

--
Reg email: RegForte (at) (that free MS email service) (dot) com

Reg said:

Mark Thorson said:

I knew USDA kept a database of the nutritional value of foods, but I didn't know what it was
called. Their incompetently designed website certainly did not direct me toward this body of
information -- arguably the most important database they have. After much searching, finally
Google gave me the name of the database, and with that the USDA search tool reluctantly
coughed it up.

You can also download the whole database as Access or flat text delimited file for importation into
other databases. I don't believe there's any sort of copyright restrictions.

Quoted message said:

The site doesn't have the world's best design, but it's certainly not hard either. In that sense
it's good web IQ test.

Anyone who has any trouble finding things on that site is lacking in search skills, IMO.
You flunked.

Using Google, search for "nutritional database usda" and it's the first hit.

-sw

Steve Wertz said:

Using Google, search for "nutritional database usda" and it's the first hit.

BOING!

--
Reg email: RegForte (at) (that free MS email service) (dot) com

Steve Wertz said:

Using Google, search for "nutritional database usda" and it's the first hit.

You didn't understand my posting. The problem was finding the database on the USDA website. I found
the name of it right away on Google, and once I had the actual name of it, I could find it on the
USDA website. But I should not have had to leave the USDA website to find it. On their home page, or
the homepage of one of their subsidiary organizations like the FNS, there should have been a button
to get there.

If you go to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office homepage, you can get right to the patent database
in a few clicks. USDA isn't like that, or close to like that. I'm sorry you didn't understand that
was the nature of my complaint.

Steve Wertz said:

Reg said:

Mark Thorson said:

I knew USDA kept a database of the nutritional value of foods, but I didn't know what it was
called. Their incompetently designed website certainly did not direct me toward this body of
information -- arguably the most important database they have. After much searching, finally
Google gave me the name of the database, and with that the USDA search tool reluctantly
coughed it up.

You can also download the whole database as Access or flat text delimited file for importation
into other databases. I don't believe there's any sort of copyright restrictions.

No federal government publications are copyrighted.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The site doesn't have the world's best design, but it's certainly not hard either. In that sense
it's good web IQ test.

Anyone who has any trouble finding things on that site is lacking in search skills, IMO. You
flunked.

Using Google, search for "nutritional database usda" and it's the first hit.

How unfair of you to notice <g>

Pastorio

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004 03:04:45 GMT, Mark Thorson <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking Followup-To: alt.test

Nothing worse than a sore loser.

-sw

Thanks for the info !

Mark Thorson said:

I knew USDA kept a database of the nutritional value of foods, but I didn't know what it was
called. Their incompetently designed website certainly did not direct me toward this body of
information -- arguably the most important database they have. After much searching, finally Google
gave me the name of the database, and with that the USDA search tool reluctantly coughed it up.

Here is a link to the main database web page:
warp.nal.usda.govsr16.htmlOpen ↗

And here is a link to page for searching the database: nal.usda.govcgiOpen ↗
bin/nut_search.pl

From there, I finally found what I wanted, the nutritional value of lotus root. It's almost
identical to a potato, in terms of water content, carbohydrate, and calories. About triple the
amount of fiber, but that's the only good thing you can say about it. That, and the holes.

<rj

Quoted message said:

I knew USDA kept a database of the nutritional value of foods, but I didn't know what it
was called.

They also have their entire database available for handheld devices. It's about 5 meg. I keep one in
my Palm PDA and find it very handy.

Hasta, Curt Nelson