The Food Lover's Companion: Epicurious Food Dictionary
Epicurious.com has most of the content of the famous book The Food Lover's Companion. This database of more than 4,000 food terms is a fantastic resource for anyone interested in food.
U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Reports by Single Nutrients
Although the name is complicated, this directory contains reports on selected food items and nutrients. The interesting thing about these reports is that they sort the foods in descending order by nutrient content.
For instance, if you wanted to know which food has the highest level of fat (i.e., Pie crust, standard-type, prepared from recipe, baked, 62.28g per serving), which food has the most total sugar (i.e., Milk, canned, condensed, sweetened, 166.46g per serving) or which food has the most fiber (i.e., Barley, pearled, raw 31.2g per serving), you can find it here.
The reports also include separate entries for many important vitamins and minerals such as vitamins A, B, C, D and calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, etc.
Note: When you get to the website page, click on the "W" to sort by nutrient content. An Adobe Acrobat PDF of the report will open up.
The "Bad Bug Book"
If you want to learn about possible food-borne diseases, this is the resource for you. It's put out by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and brings together in one place information about food-borne pathogenic microorganisms and natural toxins from the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service and the National Institutes of Health.
Environmental Working Group (EWG) 2011 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce
The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce helps you determine which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticide residues and are, therefore, the most important ones to buy organic. The guide lists 53 fruits and vegetables and their total pesticide loads, highlighting the worst offenders with its "Dirty Dozen" list and the cleanest conventional produce with its "Clean 15" list.
According to EWG: "Produce is ranked based on a composite score, equally weighing six factors that reflect how many pesticides were found in testing of each type of the produce and at what levels. Most samples are washed and peeled (when appropriate) prior to being tested, so the rankings reflect the amounts of the chemicals likely present on the food when it is eaten."
Environmental Working Group (EWG) National Drinking Water Database
Do you want to know what's in your water? You probably should. The EWG has compiled almost 20 million records obtained from state water officials covering 48,000 communities in 45 states and the District of Columbia.
According to EWG, "Throughout the country, we have found 316 chemicals in tap water. ... More than half of the chemicals detected are not subject to health or safety regulations and can legally be present in any amount. The federal government does have health guidelines for others, but 49 of these contaminants have been found in one place or another at levels above those guidelines, polluting the tap water for 53.6 million Americans. The government has not set a single new drinking water standard since 2001."
USDA National Agricultural Library's Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC) News
Get a daily e-mail or RSS feed from news sources on all food and nutrition-related information from external news sources.