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Dataerai can pull foods from USDA’s FoodData Central (FDC) — the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s public nutrition data system covering Branded packaged foods, Foundation and SR Legacy reference foods, and Survey (FNDDS) items — into one of your projects as metadata-first assets. The food’s metadata — description, data type, food category, brand owner, publication date — is copied into Dataerai so it’s searchable and shareable alongside your own data. The food record is not copied into your storage: clicking Download on an imported asset fetches a compact JSON record straight from the FoodData Central API.
Imported assets are metadata-first: they describe and link to data that lives on FoodData Central. Nothing is stored in your Dataerai allocation, so importing doesn’t consume your quota.
One FDC food (a numeric fdcId, e.g. 2057648) imports as one asset. A food in FDC is a single nutrition record — there are no files to download. The record itself is the data, so the asset’s Download fetches an abridged JSON record directly from the anonymous FoodData Central API (https://api.nal.usda.gov/fdc/v1/food/<fdcId>), including core fields such as description, brand owner, publication date, and nutrient values.

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Search FoodData Central

Open the Import from FoodData Central page and enter a search term, then Search.
  • The search is free text and matches food descriptions — try cheddar, almond milk, or a brand name.
  • Results show Title, Type, and Files, with the FDC id and publication date under each title. The type is the food’s FDC data type (Branded, Foundation, SR Legacy, or Survey (FNDDS)).
  • Use Per page to trade clicks for a longer page; the page count reflects the full result set.

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Select and import

1

Select foods

Tick the foods you want — click a row, or press Space or Enter on it, to toggle its checkbox. The header checkbox selects or clears everything on the current page; your selection is kept as you page through results.
2

Choose the destination project

Paste the UUID of the project that should own the new assets into the Import into project field.
3

Import

Click Import. A single Import result panel summarizes how many foods were imported (and assets created), plus any that failed and why.
Download fetches the food’s record directly from the FoodData Central API over HTTPS — there is no file bundle to stream. The public download link is rate-limited by USDA (per-IP); if you hit the limit, it works again once the limit refreshes.
Because imported assets point at FoodData Central rather than your own storage, their records are only available while the FDC food is. If you need a durable copy under your control, download the record and upload it as a regular asset instead.

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Next steps

Metadata-first assets

How assets that describe data elsewhere work in Dataerai.

Import from Zenodo

Pull public records from Zenodo the same metadata-first way.

Organize into collections

Group imported foods alongside your own data.

Search & discover

Find imported foods by title, type, and metadata.