About this guide & important disclaimer

Disclaimer

This website is for general information and education only. It is not medical advice and is not a substitute for care from a doctor, nurse or registered dietitian.
Kidney disease is different for everyone. Whether you should limit phosphorus, sodium or anything else depends on your stage of CKD, lab results, medicines and other health conditions. Please talk with your kidney care team before changing your diet.
Product data comes from a public government database and may be incomplete, out of date or wrong. Companies change recipes without notice. Always read the ingredient list and Nutrition Facts on the package you are holding.
A product with “none found” may still contain natural phosphorus (for example in dairy, nuts, beans and whole grains), and a flagged product is not automatically “bad” for every person. Brand names are shown for information only, and no brand has paid to be listed or ranked.

We search each product’s ingredient list for phosphate additive wording: phosphoric acid, and any “…phosphate” compound, including sodium, potassium, calcium, aluminum and ammonium phosphates, pyrophosphates, polyphosphates and metaphosphates.
We ignore words that are not additives, such as phospholipids and phosphatidylcholine (found in lecithin), phosphatase and phospholipase enzymes, vitamin forms like riboflavin-5’-phosphate, and statements like “no phosphates.”
Leavening phosphates (for example monocalcium phosphate or sodium acid pyrophosphate in baked goods and cereals) are included as additives, because they are still added phosphate.
We do not estimate how many milligrams of phosphorus an additive adds. Labels rarely give that number.

The USDA database stores many past versions of each product. We keep the most recent one, but a large share of records date from 2017–2023, so some recipes have changed.
Ingredient lists can be typed with errors or cut off, so a few products may be missed or flagged by mistake.
Sodium per serving is calculated from the amount per 100 g or 100 mL and the serving size on the label. Serving sizes vary, and some records are missing sodium.
Category membership follows the USDA category. For example, “Sodas” also includes some juice drinks and sparkling waters.
Product names are shown as they appear in the database and are in English.

USDA, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, Branded Foods, release 2026-04-30. Public domain. Source: fdc.nal.usda.gov.

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