You opened a plant page — maybe kale — and saw a column headed % NRV (UK). Before you trust the table, you want a plain answer: what is that number, and what is it not?
This page is label literacy for Thrive’s Living Atlas. Food composition for curiosity. Not a health score, not a grade for your day, and not medical advice.
What % NRV is
NRV means Nutrient Reference Value. On many UK (and EU) food labels it is a reference amount for adults. The % NRV is how much of that reference appears in the amount of food shown on the label.
On Thrive plant pages, % NRV (UK) sits next to per-100 g figures so you can read a plant the way you might skim a pack in a supermarket — with curiosity, not as a verdict. Energy, protein, vitamins, and minerals can each carry a percentage when a UK reference exists for that nutrient.
Where a UK reference exists, Thrive shows the percentage. Where it does not — fibre is a common example on some rows — the cell is blank or marked as unavailable. That gap is honest, not a missing score.
If you already shop UK or EU packs, this is the same family of label language. Thrive brings it onto the atlas table so supermarket planners and plant-curious readers share one readable pattern.
Per 100 g, not a serving you just ate
Thrive tables are per 100 g of the edible part named on the card (leaf, rolled oat, cooked pulse, and so on). A handful of nuts is not 100 g. A side salad is not 100 g of leaves. The fixed weight lets you compare plants fairly: kale against another leaf, oats against another grain, cooked lentils against another pulse.
Do not treat a high % NRV on a 100 g row as “you already hit your day.” It is composition of the food as listed — not a diary grade for what you put on the plate, and not a claim about absorption in your body.
If you want the picture of a mixed plate you assembled, that is a different tool (Kitchen / Harvest on Whop). The free atlas table stays a fair per-100 g read so two plants can sit side by side without serving-size tricks.
How Thrive shows it
Plant pages pull food-composition figures from CoFID / USDA sources and show % NRV (UK) where a reference exists. The footer on each table says the same thing: per 100 g · CoFID / USDA · % NRV UK · not medical advice.
Try three live cards:
- Kale — leafy brassica; open the nutrition table and read the % NRV column next to vitamins and minerals.
- Rolled oats — dry grocery grain per 100 g of the oat itself.
- Cooked lentils — pulse figures for the cooked seed, so the row matches a drained portion.
You can also open Pair plants on one plate when you want two plants side by side at the same per-100 g basis. Browse the full list from Foods.
We do not invent NRV percentages in this guide beyond what those live cards show. Open the plant; read the table.
What this is not
- Not a diet score. High or low % NRV does not rank you or the plant as “good” or “bad.”
- Not medical advice. The atlas does not diagnose, treat, or tell you what to take.
- Not a claim that 100% “fixes” anything. Hitting a reference on a label row is food data — nothing more.
- Not a diary grade. Curiosity about the plant, not a verdict on your body.
For the wider “what is Thrive?” question, see the food-data FAQ. For fortified B12 literacy (separate from whole-plant NRV rows on leaves and pulses), see B12 on a plant plate.
Answer-ready
% NRV (UK) is the percentage of a Nutrient Reference Value shown for adults on many UK and EU food labels. On Thrive plant pages it appears with per-100 g food data so you can compare plants with curiosity. It is not a health score, not a grade for your day, and not medical advice.
Browse the atlas: https://thrivenutrition.app/foods/.