5 Nutritional Information Sites for Science

From non-profits to doctors, here are five places on the internet to get science-backed nutrition facts.

There are far too many self-styled nutrition experts on the internet whose advice you should take with a pinch of salt (even if they don't recommend it). Instead, if you know where to look, there are plenty of evidence-based resources that will give you nutritional information that is reliable, accurate, and practical. From non-profits to doctors, here are five places on the web to get science-backed nutrition facts.

Food Insight is a layman's guide to finding science-based information about food, powered by the International Food Information Council (IFIC), a non-profit consumer research organization focusing on food safety and information. Most of the data is in the form of articles and blog posts that deep-dive into a topic while keeping it easy for an ordinary person to understand.

You can browse the articles by diet, ingredients, labels, nutrients, production, safety, science, sustainability, and sweeteners. The site also has a powerful search to find what you're looking for quickly. While there are new articles every week, you might want to subscribe to the quarterly newsletter after you initially browse the site and learn nutritional information. It will give you all the scientific updates on nutrition that you need to know without having to check the site regularly.

One of the coolest things you'll find at Food Insight is the Go-To Resource for Everything Caffeine, where they have collected a variety of information about it in one place. You can check your "caffeine IQ," understand the various sources you consume it in without knowing, and learn how to have healthy amounts of it in your daily intake. And make sure you also check out the Resources section for insights from IFIC's consumer surveys on food and health.

Physician Dr. Michael Greger started NutritionFacts.org after being frustrated by the amount of wrong or unscientific nutritional advice on the internet. The site's goal is to present only evidence-based research and facts about what we consume through videos, podcasts, and blog posts.

Dr. Greger is an advocate of a whole food, plant-based diet and has been publicly critical of animal-derived food products. The site hosts over 2000 videos on various health and nutrition topics such as diets, diseases, ingredients, food items, etc., and there's a "video of the day" to get some new information daily. If you prefer reading, start with the free ebook Evidence-Based Eating Guide, or jump into the blog for an organized way to find any information you want.

NutritionFacts.org has several other free resources for patients and doctors, including infographics, templates, and checklists to learn more about our consumption. Dr. Greger also made a dietary template called the Daily Dozen, a checklist to remind yourself to include the healthiest foods and their ideal servings in your daily diet.

You should also check out the podcast Nutrition Facts with Dr. Greger, one of the best food apps to simplify nutrition. They're short 15-minute episodes where Dr. Greger picks a topic and busts common myths while explaining the scientific facts.

MyFoodData, at its core, is a meal planner and daily food logging app for those who want to track what they eat and what nutrients their body is getting. But the site's best part is a series of online web tools that cover everything related to nutrition.

You can search or browse for a food item to learn about its nutritional data, and the database also includes many branded prepackaged foods. The nutrient ranking tool ranks foods based on those with the most or least nutrients, and you can also filter them by food groups. The comparison tool lets you check the difference between two foods based on proteins, carbs, calories, sugar, and fiber.

Perhaps the ace up the sleeve at MyFoodData is the massive nutrition data spreadsheet. That's right, the entire database that MyFoodData's tools use is available as a free Google Sheet or Excel file for you to download and use as you want. In fact, there's another free spreadsheet for those looking for detailed fat breakout data that's unavailable in the main file.

You can always run a Google search for any food item to get quick results about their nutritional values. But these aren't always trustworthy, especially as you get more specific or exotic. If you want a large searchable database of reliable and verified nutritional information, try Nutritionix.

The database is divided into three main categories. Grocery foods, with over 850,000 items across 43,000+ brands, will let you quickly find information on any packaged item you're likely to find in supermarkets. Restaurant foods include nutritional information for menu items at popular chains of fast food, dessert, bakeries, and restaurants. And finally, "common foods" are the regular foods you use in your house, such as vegetables, meats, dairy, and other eatables.

For each item, Nutritionix displays a Nutrition Facts label as you see on the back of products. Choose the serving size and you'll find all its nutrients and values. A pie chart also breaks down the calories by proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Nutritionix also shows how long it would take to burn off those calories through walking, running, and bicycling exercises.

Melissa Joy Dobbins is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist with a Masters's Degree and hosts the Sound Bites podcast to share nutritional information while talking with food experts. Every guest is credible and credentialed, with science-based research as the bedrock of all discussions.

Sound Bites has garnered a large fan following because Dobbins is the "Guilt-Free RD." Dobbins has a philosophy that, far too often, modern diets and nutritional advice focus on making people feel guilty about what they eat. Instead, her approach in each episode is to encourage practical ways to eat and drink more nutritional items while feeling good about yourself.

There are over 200 episodes of about 50 minutes each, covering specific food items or groups, diets, food behaviors among age groups, and so on. Each episode is a discussion between Dobbins and an expert on that topic.

The more you learn about nutrition through such aforementioned experts, the more you realize how much what we consume affects our physical and mental health. And once you know more, you can harness it to lead a healthier life. But remember that nutrition isn't the be-all and end-all of the journey to a healthy lifestyle. You must also account for other factors like physical activity, sleep, and recovery.

Mihir Patkar has been writing on technology and productivity for over 14 years at some of the top media publications across the world. He has an academic background in journalism.