Which foods are highest in choline?
1 cup, chopped of Egg, whole, cooked, hard-boiled gives 399.6 mg of choline. That is 73% of the Daily Value, and it is the highest of the 1000 foods on this site that has not been fortified.
Share of the Daily Value (550 mg) in one portion.
| Food | Portion | Amount | % DV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Egg, whole, cooked, hard-boiled | 1 cup, chopped (136 g) | 399.6 mg | 73% |
| Chicken, liver, all classes, cooked | 3 oz (85 g) | 246.5 mg | 45% |
| Eggs, whole | 1.0 egg whole without shell (50.3 g) | 168.5 mg | 31% |
| Chicken, giblets, cooked, simmered | 3 oz (85 g) | 151.4 mg | 28% |
| Chicken, gizzard, all classes, cooked | 1 cup chopped or dice (145 g) | 151.4 mg | 28% |
| Herring, Atlantic, pickled | 1 cup (140 g) | 145.7 mg | 26% |
| Corn pudding, home prepared | 1 cup (250 g) | 138.8 mg | 25% |
| Chicken, cooked, fried | 1 cup, chopped or diced (140 g) | 127.7 mg | 23% |
| Meatballs, meatless fortified | 1 cup (144 g) | 127.3 mg | 23% |
| Pork, leg, rump half, cooked | 1 cup, diced (135 g) | 125.3 mg | 23% |
This ranking is per typical portion rather than per 100 g. Lists built per 100 g end up full of dried herbs and fortified bars, which is technically correct and practically useless, because nobody sits down to 100 g of thyme. Items marked fortified rank where they do because nutrients were added during manufacture, not because the food itself is rich in them.
How to read this list
Eggs and liver take the top of this table and then the numbers fall away quickly. That narrowness is the point. Choline is not spread evenly across the food supply the way potassium or magnesium are.
A raw egg holds 167.5 mg of choline and a boiled one 134 mg. The adequate intake is 550 mg for men and 425 mg for women, so an egg a day puts roughly a quarter to a third of it on the plate without any planning. Most people in the United States take in less than the recommended amount, and the gap is widest among people who avoid both eggs and organ meat.
If that is you, the rest of the table matters more. Fish, poultry, pork and soy foods are the realistic way to close the distance, and it takes several of them rather than one.
The arithmetic, since eggs do most of the work
Two boiled eggs come to 268 mg of choline, about half of a man's 550 mg and nearly two thirds of a woman's 425. That is why every list of choline foods looks like a list of eggs. Boiling costs about a fifth of what a raw egg holds, 268 mg per 100 g against 335, and in general cooking is gentle with choline. The retention factor is 100 per cent for 170 of 269 methods and the lowest figure anywhere in the table is 60 per cent.
Why the list is short
Choline sits mostly in animal foods. Liver, eggs and wheat germ are the top of it, and in most countries meat, dairy, eggs and grain supply the bulk of what people actually eat. A plant-based pattern generally delivers less, and among women of childbearing age a vegetarian-leaning diet went with a lower intake. This is not a table you can rearrange freely.
How far below the recommendation most people are
Established. The median American adult takes in 280 mg of choline a day, 242 mg among women and 330 mg among men, against Adequate Intakes of 425 and 550. Eighty-seven per cent of adults and 93 per cent of adult women fall below the 550 mg Daily Value. Even the 95th percentile for adult women, 597 mg, is barely past the figure for men. Choline is the rare case on this site where most people really are under the recommendation.
Written from the evidence cards and the data on this page, then checked back against the sources. Bioma Learn has no human medical reviewer at this time and we say so rather than invent one. Information, not medical advice. How we verify.
Full guide: Choline: the nutrient almost nobody meets, and almost nobody discusses
Data: USDA FoodData Central. % Daily Value against the FDA DV of 550 mg. Checked 2026-09-15.