Foods high in biotin, ranked by micrograms

The adequate intake is just 30 mcg a day, and beef liver, eggs, and salmon cover it easily. The mcg-per-serving ranking, why deficiency is rare, why raw egg whites work against you, and why hair-growth megadoses are mostly wasted.

1. 01

   Beef liver: ~30 mcg per 3 oz, a full day

   Beef liver tops the biotin list at ~30 mcg per 3 oz, an entire day's adequate intake in one modest serving, consistent with its status as one of the most nutrient-dense foods for the B vitamins generally (NIH ODS; USDA). It is eaten in small amounts and not universally liked, but for anyone who does eat it, biotin is a non-issue. For everyone else, the eggs and fish below it clear the tiny 30 mcg target just as easily across a normal day.

2. 02

   Eggs: ~10 mcg per whole cooked egg

   One whole cooked egg carries ~10 mcg of biotin, a third of the daily target, almost all of it concentrated in the yolk (USDA FoodData Central). The key detail is cooking: raw egg white contains avidin, a protein that binds biotin and blocks its absorption, so eating many raw whites over time is one of the few genuine causes of deficiency. Cooking denatures avidin and eliminates the problem, so a cooked egg is a clean, reliable source.

3. 03

   Salmon, pork, and other meats: ~2-5 mcg per 3 oz

   Salmon supplies ~5 mcg of biotin per 3 oz, with pork, beef, and other fish contributing a few micrograms each (NIH ODS). None is a standout given the tiny requirement, but eaten across normal meals they form a steady background contribution that, combined with eggs and gut-bacteria synthesis, keeps most people comfortably above the 30 mcg mark without any thought.

4. 04

   Sunflower seeds, almonds, and nuts: ~1.5-2.6 mcg per serving

   Sunflower seeds carry ~2.6 mcg of biotin per ounce and almonds ~1.5 mcg, making them the leading plant snacks for the vitamin (USDA). They matter most for vegetarians and vegans, for whom eggs are off the table, though even then the low target means a varied plant diet with seeds, nuts, sweet potato, and legumes reaches it. As with the other B vitamins, seeds quietly stack biotin with vitamin E and magnesium.

5. 05

   Sweet potato, spinach, and legumes: ~1-2.4 mcg per serving

   A cooked sweet potato provides ~2.4 mcg of biotin, with spinach, broccoli, and legumes adding around a microgram each (NIH ODS; USDA). These are the plant staples that round out intake on a meat-light diet. No single serving is large, but the combination across a day, together with the vitamin made by gut bacteria, explains why biotin deficiency is essentially never seen from diet alone in healthy adults.

6. 06

   Why hair-growth megadoses are mostly wasted

   High-dose biotin sold for hair, skin, and nails, typically 5,000 to 10,000 mcg, hundreds of times the requirement, has only shown benefit in people with a real deficiency or a specific brittle-nail condition, not in the general population (NIH ODS). More important, those doses are known to skew many lab tests, including thyroid and heart-attack markers, producing false results, so labs and the FDA advise disclosing biotin use before blood work. For anyone eating eggs and a normal diet, extra biotin has nowhere useful to go.