The graphic below has outlines around the various input fields that can be used to optimize your food search.  Click in any of the areas outlined by a blue box to see help on that feature.

Select Nutrient drop-down:

Use the 'Select Nutrient'  drop-down to build up the list of foods returned for the search in the order of highest-to-lowest based on the nutrient level of the food.  This feature is useful when you are trying to find foods that will satisfy a nutritional need that may be lacking in your general diet. 

By selecting a nutrient for lookup, you can quickly find foods that you like that can be added to your diet in order to obtain proper nutritional needs.  If this drop-down is left blank, the foods will be listed in the order found in the database and will not ordered based on any relevant factor.

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Food Groups list:

The food group list should be used to limit the search results to specific categories of foods. When you know the food category that you are interested in looking within, you can filter out unwanted entries that may come from alternate categories that are not of interest. 

For instance, when looking specifically for dairy or egg food substances, limiting the groups to only search that category will filter out all other results that may have either dairy or egg products in the title.  If left to search the entire database, foods from the 'Baby Foods', Soups, Sauces and Gravies', and other categories may be listed that are not of interest.

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Search input box:

In general, the search input box will always be used to limit the food search.  However, when a 'Nutrient' has been selected from the nutrient drop-down and the food groups have been individually selected, clicking 'Search' will build a list of all foods from the food groups selected based on the nutrient selected for lookup.  The maximum number of entries shown is 200 entries, so the results will be limited in that way, but the search itself will return all entries with foods containing that nutrient so this feature may provide poor performance.

Use the 'Search' box to enter specific words that should be used to limit or qualify the food lookup.  If you want to enter a whole phrase, use single quotes around the phrase.  All words (or phrases) will be taken together to limit the food list returned.

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