Why your body needs each one
Your body can't make most vitamins and minerals, or can't make enough of them. They have to come from food. Each one has a specific job, and no other nutrient can fill in for it. Plenty of vitamin C won't make up for too little iron.
That's why variety matters more than any single “superfood”. Different raw foods cover different parts of the table, and a few well-chosen ones together cover most of it.
Where the numbers come from
Nutrient amounts come from the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (Release 28, published by USDA as SR Legacy in FoodData Central). Each food shows its USDA record number, so you can look it up.
SR Legacy no longer changes. USDA's newer Foundation Foods dataset is re-released every April and October with new lab analyses. Where a food has been matched to it, its newer values replace the older ones and are marked † on the food's full nutrient list.
USDA does not report biotin, iodine or omega-3 for these foods. For those three, values come from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements fact sheets, which list a small set of foods. Foods not on those lists show “not measured”, which is different from zero.
A rich source gives 20% or more of the FDA Daily Value in one serving, and a good source gives 10–19%. These are the same thresholds FDA uses for “high in” and “good source of” on food labels. Servings are FDA reference amounts: 85 g for vegetables, 140 g for fresh fruit, 30 g for nuts and seeds, 90 g for cooked beans, 140 g for cooked grains, 85 g for cooked meat and fish, 4 g for herbs.
Fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds are raw. Beans, grains, meat and fish use USDA's plain cooked values, since they are not eaten raw. Plant milks are the one packaged exception: their values depend on the producer, because most of their calcium, vitamin D and B12 is added by the maker. Real foods vary with variety, soil, season, storage and cooking.