Phenylalanine. I am analyzing a food record for a PKU patient and would like to know why a cheeseburger shows up as having 0 mg phenylalanine?

Since we are not a lab and do not conduct food analyses ourselves, we rely on our sources for the nutritional data that we report. Manufacturers are only required to list 14 nutrients on their product labels, and unfortunately phenylalanine (phe) is not one of them. The USDA database does report amino acid data for a good percentage of their foods, however, and I would suggest that you stick with these foods for your analyses. ESHA code 4 (1% milk) has phe data, as does 56648 (large cheeseburger). If you enter "usda" in your food search (ie: "1% milk usda") you will pull up only USDA items associated with the food name.