Nutrition API

About the Nutrition API

A food and nutrition facts API. Nutrition works by matching your search term to the best generic food in the USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy database and returning its per-100-gram nutrition panel, layered with derived intelligence the raw USDA data does not carry - calories per gram, the percentage of calories from protein, fat and carbohydrate, and protein per 100 calories. Paid plans unlock the full micronutrient panel (sodium, potassium, cholesterol, the individual fats, minerals and vitamins), the percent Daily Value each nutrient supplies the way a Nutrition Facts label reads, plain-language dietary flags like high protein and low sodium, and can scale the whole panel to any serving weight in grams. Data comes from the public-domain USDA food composition dataset.

What people use it for

Meal Tracker Logging

When users log raw ingredients in a diet diary, calculate carbohydrates, fiber, and total calories per serving without manual entry.

Recipe Nutrition Calculator

Cooking websites aggregate raw ingredient lists to display standard calorie counts, protein totals, and common household serving measurements on recipe cards.

Restaurant Menu Labeling

To meet calorie disclosure rules, kitchen inventory managers check baseline calories and macronutrient breakdowns for raw ingredients before publishing physical menus.

Meal Kit Breakdown

Dietary subscription services evaluate ingredient names against USDA composition figures to print clear sugar, fat, and carbohydrate amounts on customer packing slips.

Ways to call it

One endpoint, many ways in — REST with JSON, XML, YAML and CSV, plus GraphQL and an MCP interface for AI agents.

JSON

Default REST response

XML

Markup format

YAML

Human-readable

CSV

Tabular export

Beta

GraphQL

Query language

New

MCP

For AI agents

Request parameters — GET /v1/nutrition

Sent in the query string. Premium parameters are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them. Anything not listed here is dropped rather than passed through.

Required

Optional

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curl "https://api.apiverve.com/v1/nutrition?food=banana&grams=118" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Authentication

Send your key in the x-api-key header. That is the only auth step — no token exchange, and no per-endpoint scope to configure.

Response — GET /v1/nutrition

Every APIVerve endpoint returns the same three top-level keys, so one response handler covers your whole integration: status, error and data. Only data changes shape.

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{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "food": "Bananas, raw",
    "fdcId": 173944,
    "category": "Fruits and Fruit Juices",
    "basis": "per 100g",
    "servingSizes": [
      {
        "label": "1 NLEA serving",
        "grams": 126
      },
      {
        "label": "1 extra large (9\" or longer)",
        "grams": 152
      },
      {
        "label": "1 large (8\" to 8-7/8\" long)",
        "grams": 136
      }
    ],
    "nutrition": {
      "calories": 89,
      "protein": 1.09,
      "totalFat": 0.33,
      "carbohydrates": 22.8,
      "fiber": 2.6,
      "sugars": 12.2
    },
    "micronutrients": {
      "sodium": 1,
      "potassium": 358,
      "cholesterol": 0,
      "saturatedFat": 0.112,
      "transFat": 0,
      "monounsaturatedFat": 0.032,
      "polyunsaturatedFat": 0.073,
      "calcium": 5,
      "iron": 0.26,
      "magnesium": 27,
      "phosphorus": 22,
      "zinc": 0.15,
      "vitaminC": 8.7,
      "vitaminA": 3,
      "vitaminD": 0,
      "vitaminE": 0.1,
      "vitaminK": 0.5,
      "thiamin": 0.031,
      "riboflavin": 0.073,
      "niacin": 0.665,
      "vitaminB6": 0.367,
      "folate": 20,
      "vitaminB12": 0,
      "water": 74.9
    },
    "analytics": {
      "caloriesPerGram": 0.89,
      "proteinCaloriePercent": 4.4,
      "fatCaloriePercent": 3,
      "carbCaloriePercent": 92.6,
      "proteinPer100Calories": 1.22
    },
    "dailyValues": {
      "protein": 2.2,
      "totalFat": 0.4,
      "saturatedFat": 0.6,
      "cholesterol": 0,
      "sodium": 0,
      "carbohydrates": 8.3,
      "fiber": 9.3,
      "potassium": 7.6,
      "calcium": 0.4,
      "iron": 1.4,
      "magnesium": 6.4,
      "phosphorus": 1.8,
      "zinc": 1.4,
      "vitaminC": 9.7,
      "vitaminA": 0.3,
      "vitaminD": 0,
      "vitaminE": 0.7,
      "vitaminK": 0.4,
      "thiamin": 2.6,
      "riboflavin": 5.6,
      "niacin": 4.2,
      "vitaminB6": 21.6,
      "folate": 5,
      "vitaminB12": 0
    },
    "dietaryFlags": {
      "highProtein": false,
      "goodSourceOfProtein": false,
      "highFiber": false,
      "goodSourceOfFiber": false,
      "lowSodium": true,
      "lowFat": true,
      "lowSaturatedFat": true,
      "lowCholesterol": true,
      "lowCalorie": false
    }
  }
}

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Premium fields are absent rather than zeroed on plans that do not include them, so check for presence instead of comparing to 0.

Response headers

Every response carries your balance, so your own code always knows where it stands without polling anything. All four are exposed to browsers through CORS.

Errors

Read the HTTP status first, then error for the specific reason. The body names the parameter that has to change.

What a call costs — 2 credits per call

Credits are shared across every APIVerve API — one balance, one key, one bill. Failed requests never count against it, so a rejected input costs nothing.

Calls are what the credits buy at this API's rate — spend them here, on any of the other APIs, or across both. Nothing is reserved per endpoint.

Zero-code embed — one snippet, no backend

Drop an interactive Nutrition form onto any page. The widget calls the API for you, so no key ever appears in your markup and there is nothing to deploy.

Changelog — Nutrition API

Every change to this endpoint, newest first. Breaking changes ship as a new version and the previous one keeps serving — response fields are added, never removed or retyped in place, so an integration written against v1 keeps working.

Currently v1