Health — entry 010 of 23
FoodData Central
FoodData Central is the USDA's public nutrient database, unifying Foundation Foods, SR Legacy, the Survey (FNDDS), and Branded Food data types behind one keyed REST API for food search and per-item nutrient lookups. It's free with a self-serve data.gov API key (or the shared DEMO_KEY for quick testing), rate-limited to 1,000 requests/hour per registered key by default (DEMO_KEY is capped at 30/hour and 50/day). A live GET against api.nal.usda.gov/fdc/v1/foods/search with no key returns 403; a live Origin-header probe with a valid key returns Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *, resolving the stored 'unknown' cors to 'yes'.
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<a href="https://greatapis.com/api/fooddata-central/"><img src="https://greatapis.com/badge/fooddata-central.svg" alt="Scored 78 on greatapis.com"></a>Auth quickstart
- Sign up with the provider to get an API key.
- Send it on every request as a header
Authorization: <key> - The exact header isn't documented — Authorization is a common default; confirm in the provider's docs.
Your key is stored only in this browser (localStorage) and sent directly to the API — never to greatapis.
Developer reference
1,000 requests/hour per API key by default (DEMO_KEY limited to 30/hour, 50/day)