*4.1. Food Data Central*

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) manages and maintains Food-Data Central [15], a platform providing access to distinct types of data on nutrients and other food components, including Foundation Foods, National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (SR Legacy), Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS 2017–2018), and Experimental Foods. The DB platform is noteworthy for providing different types of searches (by component or by food), which may encompass a combination of databases. Metadata are provided, including the number of samples, sampling location, date of collection, analytical approaches used, and if appropriate, agricultural information (e.g., genotype and production practices—intensive, organic, etc.). In respect to Experimental Foods, it is noteworthy that they are meant for research purposes and described foods may not be available in the market. The corresponding database includes data from multiple sources to allow users to examine a range of factors that may affect the nutritional profiles of foods and resulting dietary intakes, as well as the sustainability of agricultural and dietary food systems. This FDB is available at https://agcros-usdaars.opendata.arcgis.com accessed on 17 August 2021, and the user is able to explore data (referring to US) by topic or by location, for example [15].
