1600 food items and values for 38 different nutrients are included in the FCT. The nutritional values are presented in the FCT for each of the food items in the form in which they are usually found in stores (mostly unprepared). In addition, the table also provides nutritional values of a variety of prepared foods and dishes.
All values presented in the table refer to the content per 100 grams of an edible portion of the food, i.e. after parts that are usually not eaten, such as peel, pits and shell, have been removed. The FCT is regularly updated as new food products are launched every year, and because ingredients in existing food products and methods of production change frequently.
Sometimes, we detect mistakes in the FCT. If the mistake is severe, the FCT has to be updated before the annual update. If that is the case, a list with the corrections is to be available.
The FCT’s nutritional values are compiled from:
- Chemical analyses performed in Norwegian quality-assured laboratories
- Values that are provided by the industry or borrowed from foreign food composition tables
- Values that are estimated based on similar food items and dishes
- References are provided for all nutritional values presented in the FCT.
What is the FCT used for?
The FCT is the fundamental basic tool for estimating intakes of energy and nutrients among individuals and populations. It is therefore an important tool in governmental food policy and management, education and public health promotion and for health workers and researchers. The table is also used by the food industry as the basis of nutrient declarations and in food production.
Search for food
To search for food items, you can use the search box on the home page, or click on one of the food groups and use the search box within that food group. All food names that include your search phrase will be presented in the search results. If you want to search using only the food groups, you can click on one of the eleven groups. Subgroups and number of foods in the group will then be presented.
Search in food groups is recommended when you are not sure what the food is called, want an overview of all food items in a subgroup or want to compare different food items within a group.
It can be easier to search through the food groups, partly because the number of hits in the search results decreases. For example, searching for the word milk, you will get some hits in the group of milk and milk-based beverages, as well as some hits in other food groups. This is because the word "milk" is also included in the name of many breads, pancakes, etc.
It is also possible to search for a food product within a given group. Click for example on the food group ‘Poultry and meat’, type "fillet" in the search box, and you will get all the fillets in this food group.
To see the nutritional content of a food item, you can click directly on the food item in the food table. Then you get a blue window displaying the nutritional values of the food item. You'll also find nutritional values of food items in the table in the main screen. You can get the right values for the nutrients you are looking for by clicking on the blue button "Select nutrients" at the top right corner of the table screen. In the blue box that comes up you can click on the nutrients or groups of nutrients you are looking for, and press "Update table." The table will show the values of the nutrients you have chosen. Macro nutrients will be showed automatically unless you have deselected these.
My Food List
By using "My Food List" you can easily see the nutritional content of several foods from different food groups at once. By clicking on the green cross next to a food item it is added to "My Food List". The green ”My food list” window shows how many food items you have added to the list.
After you have added all the foods you want in the list, click on the green box to see your list. If you want to save the list you can download it as a spreadsheet. You can also easily clear the list and return to the front page. If you have food in “My Food list” and close the Food Composition Table page, the browser will remember your food the next time you enter the page.
Energy and nutrients - units of quantity and name
The internationally adopted unit of energy are kilojoules, which is abbreviated to kJ. Since many people still use the term kilocalories, which are abbreviated to kcal, the energy content of food items are shown both in kilojoules and in calories in the Food Composition Table.
The energy units kilojoules and kilocalories are given as integers in the Food Composition Table, whereas the number of decimal places for the nutrient values vary between 0 and 2.
Each table value is associated with a reference number. The references will appear when you click on the food you want to investigate. In the blue box that appears, you can then click on "References" at the top.
Calculation of edible portion
All values are given in terms of content in 100 g of edible product, that is, without skin, skull, bones, seeds or other parts that usually are not eaten.
How large the edible portion of a food item is, is given in percent in a separate column in the table. If the values are given as 100, it means that everything is edible.
Examples of calculation of edible portion
Banana. The food composition table shows that on average 66% of a banana is edible, the rest is peel. If a banana weighs 150 g with peels, the net weight, or edible part is calculated as follows: (150 g x 66%) / 100% = 99 g.
Egg. The egg is 88% edible, the rest is shell. An egg weighs 75 g with shell. Net weigh, or edible part is calculated as follows: ( 75 g x 88%) / 100% = 66 g
Printing and sharing
"Printable version" allows printing The Food Composition Table banner and other real text on the screen. This option is available in all screen pages that display the table values for a food product.
Saving to a file (spreadsheet)
The food items in "My Food list" can be saved to a spreadsheet. To download all the food items in the food table in a spreadsheet, you must click on “About” in the right hand corner of the screen and choose "Download". There you will find the latest updated version of the Food Composition Table. Earlier versions of The Food Composition Table are downloadable when clicking on “Publications” in the menu, and then open the article "Old tables".
Feel free to use the table values, If you use the data in presentations or distribute the data to a third party, we ask that you respect the intellectual property rights as well as the copyrights and always include a reference to the food composition table, as follows: "Food Composition Table 2016. Norwegian Food Safety Authority, Directorate of Health and the University of Oslo. www.matvaretabellen.no".
Read more about “Copyright”.
- Weights, measures and portion sizes for foods
- Scientific articles related to the Norwegian Food Composition table
- Analysis reports
- Links to Norwegian online resources about diet and nutrition
- Antioxidants in Norwegian foods (Rune Blomhoff, University of Oslo)
- Conference contribution related to the Norwegian Food Composition table
- Old tables
The Norwegian Food Safety Authority, the Directorate for Health and the Department of Nutrition at the University of Oslo have collaborated to publish the Norwegian Food Composition Table 2016 (MVT-16). The publishers provide the data in MVT-16 at the disposal of users of this website, free of charge. The content is protected pursuant to the law of intellectual property. Table values and texts from MVT-16 must not be copied or otherwise reproduced without specific reference to the source.
How to specify the reference of the Food Composition Table
"Norwegian Food Composition Database 2016. Norwegian Food Safety Authority, The Norwegian Directorate of Health and University of Oslo. www.matvaretabellen.no".
Graphics may not be copied or otherwise reproduced without written permission from the editors working on Matportalen.no. Please contact Matportalen if you have any questions.
The purpose of the website is to make the information in the Norwegian Food Composition Table easily available. Table values are based on Norwegian analytical data, calculations, values from foreign food composition tables and from other sources. A reference for the table value can be found by clicking on the value itself.
The information on this website is intended for general use. The publishers cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the values.
The publisher takes no form of responsibility for the table values and any use of these in other connections, for example in other food composition databases and nutrient calculation software. There can thus be no form of liability for direct or indirect loss, for example operational loss and loss of profit, in connection with the use of the table values.