What is PhilFCT?
PhilFCT is maintained by the Department of Science and Technology – Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI). It brings together nutrient data for locally grown ingredients, home-cooked dishes, and regional specialties into one searchable, publicly accessible database.
Every food shown on this site has passed through a multi-stage validation pipeline before being published, so the values you see are checked for internal consistency — not just entered and displayed as-is.
Data Infrastructure: The 4-Layer Pipeline
Every food record moves through four database layers before it ever appears in search results. Each layer has its own tables, so a food's data is never edited in place — it's copied forward, validated, and only the final layer is public.
Staging
A new submission is entered with its initial data, whether from staff or a public contributor.
Working Record
Promoted with a permanent Food ID and matched against verified databases to fill in missing nutrients.
Validated
Automated nutrient and biochemical quality checks run, and a reviewer signs off on the record.
Published
The final, publicly-searchable record — what you see on this site.
System Architecture
A quick technical overview of how the pieces fit together, for developers and researchers integrating with this data.
The AI Matching Engine ranks candidate foods from the reference databases by embedding similarity, then a reviewer confirms or corrects the match before it's approved — see "Where the nutrient values come from" below.
Where the nutrient values come from
Analyzed or Calculated
Most nutrients are directly measured or calculated for that specific Philippine food, following established laboratory and calculation methods.
Borrowed and Adjusted
When a value hasn't been directly measured yet, it's matched to a similar entry in another verified food composition database, then mathematically adjusted for differences in water, protein, and fat content between the two foods before a reviewer approves it — so a "borrowed" value is still adjusted specifically for that food, not just copied as-is.
Nutrient Coverage Timeline
PhilFCT's nutrient coverage has grown edition by edition. Here's when each nutrient first entered the tables, from 1951 to 2024.
38 nutrients have a recorded introduction year — 36 more are tracked without one on record.
How the PhilFCT 2019 Handbook Was Developed
This site's nutrient values are drawn from the Philippine Food Composition Tables (PhilFCT) 2019, the official DOST-FNRI reference handbook. The sections below summarize its history, methods, and limitations, so researchers, developers, dietitians, and other users can interpret the data correctly before relying on it.
Historical Development
Scientists began analyzing the nutrient content of Philippine foods, measuring water, protein, fat, minerals, and vitamins.
The first official Food Composition Tables were released. Where local laboratory data weren't yet available, values from foreign food tables were used temporarily and marked accordingly.
Sodium and Potassium were added, alongside more locally-analyzed foods.
Calcium, oxalic acid, and eleven amino acids were added. Scientific names of foods were introduced.
Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Folic Acid, Cholesterol, fatty acid profiles, and trace minerals (Zinc, Copper, Selenium, etc.) were added.
Introduced computerized databases, improved analytical methods, more accurate nutrient calculations, and better quality control.
The Philippine Food Composition Tables 1997 became the national reference: 541 foods, 17 food groups, and standard food codes.
FNRI resumed updating the database — new food samples, indigenous vegetables, mixed dishes, and nutrients related to non-communicable diseases were added, resulting in the PhilFCT 2019 edition this site is built on.
What the PhilFCT 2019 Edition Contains
The handbook provides nutrient information for foods commonly eaten in the Philippines, intended for researchers, nutritionists, dietitians, doctors, government agencies, food manufacturers, and students.
It also includes recipe calculations for mixed dishes, indigenous vegetables, and borrowed nutrient values used whenever laboratory data weren't available.
How Foods Are Identified & Classified
Food ID
Every food has a unique Food ID (e.g. A001,
B052,
M103) so each food appears only once in the
database. The ID helps identify foods, avoid duplicates, and match data between databases.
Food Description
Every entry includes an English name, Filipino name (if applicable), scientific name, and common names. Scientific names are verified.
Food Groups
Foods are organized into 17 major groups to make searching easier, including:
How Nutrient Values Are Reported
All nutrients are reported per 100 grams of edible portion — not the whole fruit or whole animal. For example, a banana weighing 150g may only have 110g edible after removing the peel; the nutrient values refer only to that edible part.
Proximate Composition
Water, Energy, Protein, Fat, Carbohydrates, Ash
Minerals
Calcium, Iron, Phosphorus, Sodium, and others
Vitamins
Fat-soluble (Vitamin A, Beta-carotene) and water-soluble (B1, B2, B3, C)
Other Nutrients
Dietary Fiber, Total Sugar, Cholesterol, Fatty acids
How Food Samples Were Collected
Foods were purchased from supermarkets, grocery stores, and wet markets — mostly in Metro Manila, with samples from the provinces collected when necessary. Different brands of processed foods were also sampled to reflect what's actually available to consumers.
How Energy & Key Nutrients Were Calculated
Energy (Atwater Factors)
Calories are calculated from macronutrients using standard Atwater factors:
Example: 10g protein × 4 kcal/g = 40 kcal.
Vitamin A (Retinol Activity Equivalent)
Vitamin A is reported as RAE, combining both animal (retinol) and plant (beta-carotene) sources into one standardized measure:
RAE = Retinol + (Beta-carotene ÷ 12)
Data Source Labels (Handbook Convention)
Not every nutrient in the handbook was measured in a laboratory for every food. The printed PhilFCT 2019 handbook labels each value with where it came from:
| A1 | Newly analyzed Philippine data |
| A2 | Philippine FCT 1997 data |
| B | Borrowed data from another verified database |
| C | Recipe calculation |
| D | Assumed or estimated data |
Borrowed Nutrient Values
When lab analysis wasn't available, FNRI borrowed data from trusted international databases — mainly the USDA Nutrient Database — and adjusted those values to better match Philippine foods. This site follows the same principle: a borrowed value is matched, then mathematically adjusted for water/protein/fat differences, before being approved (see "Where the nutrient values come from" above).
Recipe Calculation
For mixed dishes (adobo, sinigang, kare-kare), the cooked dish itself wasn't always analyzed directly. Instead, FNRI calculated nutrient values from ingredient weights, cooking yield factors, and nutrient retention factors to estimate the nutrient content after cooking.
Household Measures
Common household measurements (1 cup, 1 tablespoon, 1 teaspoon, 1 piece, etc.) are converted into metric units, so nutrient intake can be estimated using everyday measurements rather than a kitchen scale.
Limitations to Keep in Mind
FNRI notes that nutrient values can vary due to factors such as:
The nutrient values in this database are reference values, not exact amounts for every individual food item — use them as a well-founded estimate, not a laboratory certificate for any single sample you might have in hand.
Explore the database
Search published foods, ask AskPhilFCT a question, or contribute your own food data.