How to Conduct a Food Name Search
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This is the most basic NutriBase Search. It is also one of the easiest types of searches to use. This is a good search type for beginners.

Use this type of search to locate food items by their food name. (The “Food Name” is the description displayed in the first column of data when your search results are displayed.) When you conduct a Food Name Search, you are searching the food names in this first column of NutriBase data.

In the Food Lookups panel, click the down arrow and select the "Food name search" option.

Check the box next to USDA to tell NutriBase you want to limit your search to the USDA database. (You can check other boxes to include other databases if you desire.)

Type in your “search string” (food name) in the edit box labeled “Search for:” For this example, let's search on "raw onion." Click the “Search” button and NutriBase will search across the Food Name column of the selected database (USDA in this example) and display all the “hits” that contain the word or words in your food name.

What this means is if you type in to search “onion raw”, the search results will only contain “hits” that include both of these words – in any sequence. To locate more onion entries, you could search again on just “onion.” (Most of the entries would be raw anyway since “raw” is often assumed in food names unless specified with words like “sautéed,” “fried,” “grilled,” etc.)

If you fail to locate suitable hits, try including other databases and repeat your search. Or use fewer words or letters in your search string. The shorter your search string, the more hits you should locate.

Note: If you cannot locate a food item in the database, you can always add a new food as a Personal Food Item to NutriBase.

Click any column header to sort all the displayed data from high-to-low based on the values in that column. (This is a very popular feature.)

Click the same column header again to reverse the sort order. You can do this for any nutrient.

To add one of the displayed Food Items to a Food Log, Recipe, Meal, or Meal Plan (depending on which NutriBase window you happen to be in), highlight it then:

  1. Drag and drop it into the food list in the upper left of this window, or
  2. Right click and select the option to "Add selected item."

When you point your mouse over your Search Results and right click, you get the following menu.

This menu gives you a variety of options:

When you select Food Categories you have the option to also select the subcategories for the major Food Categories. We call this option using the Advanced Food Categories option. To enable this, right click over the area where you search results are displayed and checking the "Advanced Food Categories" option. Turn this option off by un-checking this option.

The Auto Search option tells NutriBase to reconduct the previous search when you select another Food Category.

The Search Footer option allows you to search for strings within your search results if desired.

Hide/Show nutrients allows you to select which nutrients you want to display in your Search Results.

Reset columns returns your nutrient columns to their original default positions (after you have rearranged them by dragging and dropping them into a new sequence).

Show 100 gram serving sizes allows you determine whether you want to display food items with serving sizes of 100 grams. 100 gram serving sizes are the most common serving sizes in the USDA and Canadian databases. Many users don't want them displayed because they take up a lot of vertical display space and they make it more difficult to locate the more commonly used serving sizes.

Add selected Item adds the selected item to your Food Log, Recipe, Meal, etc.

Selecting Item details shows all the data for the selected food item in a single screen view. (You can also do this by simply double-clicking any food item.)

Add to PFI will transfer the selected food item and add it to your Personal Foods as a PFI. (You can go back to it later and edit it as desired.)

Item cost allows you to add the cost of any highlighted food item.

This topic updated 07/16/2015

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