An official website of the United States government.
This page provides various nutrition tools and curricula for researchers, educators, and healthcare professionals. Use calculators to estimate nutrient needs, explore research toolkits, access teaching resources, and find information about nutrition-related career development.
Research Projects and Tools
USDA ARS Human Nutrition Research Roundup
View a selection of current projects from across the six USDA Agricultural Research Service human nutrition research centers.
NAL Research Tools
Access NAL's research tools including PubAg for peer-reviewed journal articles, the Food Safety Research Projects Database, and the Ag Data Commons open data repository.
FoodData Central
Explore the nutrients and components in foods using this USDA database.
Find Nutrition Research and Publications
Learn how to find food and human nutrition research articles using topical queries and bibliographic databases.
Calculators
DRI Calculator for Healthcare Professionals
Calculate daily nutrient recommendations for calories, macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals based on the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) established by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
-
Interactive Calculators [bcm.edu]
Browse calculators from the USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center that estimate a child's health status, blood pressure, and body composition.
-
Calculating Calories and Nutrients in Meals [hnrca.tufts.edu]
Follow these steps from the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging to calculate nutrient content for a variety of meal types.
-
Body Weight Planner [niddk.nih.gov]
Calculate personalized calorie and physical activity needs to reach and maintain a goal weight using this planner from the National Institutes of Health.
-
Calculate Your Body Mass Index [nhlbi.nih.gov]
Enter your height and weight to obtain your body mass index (BMI) using this tool from the National Institutes of Health.
-
Alcohol Calculators [niaaa.nih.gov]
Explore calculators from the National Institutes of Health to help you determine the amount of alcohol and calories in different container sizes.
-
Basal Energy Expenditure: Harris-Benedict Equation [med.cornell.edu]
Estimate Basal Energy Expenditure (BEE) using the Harris-Benedict Equation in this calculator from Cornell University.
Dietary Assessment Toolkits
-
Dietary Assessment Instrument Profiles [cancer.gov]
This toolkit helps researchers determine the best methods of collecting and analyzing dietary intake data to align with their research question and resources.
-
Diet Assessment Decision Tool [advancingnutrition.org]
Use this decision tool to identify methods to collect data or to find existing data to answer research questions about diets in specific populations.
-
Nutritional Environment Measures Survey (NEMS) [nems-upenn.org]
The NEMS Tools are observational measures to assess the community and consumer nutrition environments.
-
Food Security Survey Tools [ers.usda.gov]
The USDA Economic Research Service provides the most authoritative guide on how to measure household food security and hunger. Survey modules are available in Spanish and Chinese translations.