They can also tally how much sodium, protein, and sugar you eat. Our pick for the best overall nutrition app is MyPlate Calorie Counter. It has a simple, straightforward interface, and it offers nutrition tracking, meal plans, recipes, and workouts. MyFitnessPal is a powerhouse app, with an enormous food database, barcode scanner, recipe importer, restaurant logger, food insights, calorie counter, and so much more. MacroFactor’s food logger features an integrated set of tools for designing your meals.
We found the app very helpful for creating more balanced meals and helping regulate portion sizes, while also keeping sodium and saturated fat intake in check. “The barcode scanner makes it easy to input foods and have an accurate analysis of your dietary intake,” Barkyoumb adds. Think of food tracking apps as your digitally upgraded food journal.
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But nutrition logging is often featured on paid apps such as Fitbit Premium or MyFitnessPal, so it’s not surprising to see this feature tied to a subscription. ACTIVE.com’s editorial team relies on the knowledge and experience of fitness and wellness experts including competitive athletes, coaches, physical therapists, nutritionists, and certified trainers. This helps us ensure the products we feature are of the highest standard. Collectively, the team has spent countless hours researching equipment, gear, and recovery tools in order to create the most accurate, authentic content for our readers. Customer satisfaction is also a key part of our review process, which https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/how-to-eat-a-balanced-diet/eight-tips-for-healthy-eating/ is why we only feature products that are highly rated.
Make it easy on yourself.
This can be helpful if you suspect you have a food intolerance, such as lactose. It can also be beneficial if you have an underlying condition, such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and are trying to tweak your nutrition as part of your treatment plan. If you notice unpleasant symptoms after eating certain foods or feel great after eating others, you can adjust your diet accordingly. She holds a master’s degree in clinical nutrition from New York University, as well as advanced certifications as a Women’s Fitness Specialist and a Behavior Change Specialist.
In this case, MacroFactor AI will prioritize building your result from research-grade, micronutrient-rich food entries. The developer, Maricel Caciula, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. If you’ve never upgraded to MyFitnessPal Premium or never started a Premium trial before, you are eligible for a 7-day free trial. Be the first to hear about new products, get product updates, exclusive offers, athlete stories, and more when you join our email mailing list. Track your intake with ease using photo, video, or manual entry—all in one seamless experience.
Effortlessly Scan Food
For instance, apps like Noom and MyFitnessPal support weight loss, whereas Ate and See How You Eat aim to help boost mindfulness around your eating habits. The app can also record your movement and other aspects of your health, like blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels. When signing up, the app collects information about your height, weight, age, and specific goals to provide a personalized plan based on your needs. To access all of the meal planning features, PlateJoy offers a monthly subscription for $12.99, a 6-month membership for $69, or an annual membership for $99. One nice thing about doing your nutrition in Garmin Connect rather than another app is that the setup process uses your activity history to help you pick a calorie target.
Meal timing
According to the company, it contains a large searchable database of foods, more than 50 million — the largest database on our list. Some people prefer to use calorie counter apps for weight management or food tracking. While they may not work for everyone’s health goals, these are the best calorie counter apps to try today. See How You Eat limits you to 12 photos a day, so it is limiting if you eat frequent meals and snacks. There are still a few bugs, but the app works well and is a great place to start if you’re apprehensive of calorie counting or weight loss food log apps. SIGN UP FOR FREEOur favorite feature of Cronometer is that it offers you all of the essentials of a food tracking app for free.
You eat “healthy,” but your energy, weight, or cravings still don’t make sense. You swap ingredients, try new recipes, even cut out entire food groups, but you’re still guessing what actually helps your unimeal app reviews body feel better. Customize your macro levels and tag them with food icons to make it fast and easy to log your daily macros. This app also offers a Food bank tool to help you conserving calories for special events.
Deep Health Integration
8Fit also has a built-in tracker that allows users to track their progress. There is a free version with limited features, or users can upgrade to the premium version to access all the features. Use the app to keep track of your daily and weekly Bites allotment with your food diary, which has the support of a database of over one million products.
How quick is meal logging?
Simple provides a guide to IF along with different fasting periods catered to your needs and lifestyle. It’s pretty user friendly, and easily tracks everything from meals and steps to hydration and sleep. The app also offers information on intermittent fasting with fasting trackers, as well as motivational success stories.
If you want to simply count calories, the best app for you will be different than for someone who wants a structured plan to help them lose weight. Decide what your goals are first, then you’ll be able to decide which app is best for you. Most food-tracking apps will estimate your daily calorie burn based on your height and weight and activity levels, sometimes allowing you to import exercise from your other smartphone apps. Many apps partition the calories you generally burn at rest with the calories you burn from activities.
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Alongside these scores, the app provides information and short lessons about how to support your gut and overall health. Our new app reveals what the food labels won’t, using data from the world’s largest nutrition study run by ZOE. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. There are of course other features we could mention, but these are just a few to get you started on your search. Nutrition Action provides honest, unbiased, science-based advice on nutrition and health.

Get Calorie Counter app
- GET NOOM FREE TRIALMyPlate Calorie Counter is a fully free, but basic food tracking app.
- When it’s time to eat, you can either manually enter your meals or scan product bar codes.
- It’s based on work by Kevin Hall, a top weight researcher at NIH.
- You can easily find recipes that fit into your desired daily intake range — even no-bake mini blueberry vegan cakes — with options starting at 50 calories and going up to over 700.
- The developer, Maricel Caciula, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below.
- So, the MacroFactor team devised a quantitative system to evaluate the speed and efficiency of every food logger app on the market, and made note of every tap that could be shaved away.
In addition, just as it recommends a maximum number of calories to consume to reach your target weight, a calorie monitor can help you find out whether you’re eating too little. This could cause your resting metabolic rate (RMR) to slow down after weight loss, as noted in a small 2016 study. The app also has a chat community where users can swap success stories and get tips, recipes, and more.
You can also track macros, vitamins, and other micronutrients and see how everything you eat supports your goals. You don’t need a smartwatch to enjoy the benefits of the Zepp App. Download it for free, and you’ll have access to all core features—personalized nutrition tracking, trend reports, and meal insights—right from your phone.
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: See How You Eat
This is why finding an app that makes food logging easy is so important, because we’re not going to lie, it can be a pain. Adding ingredient after ingredient is no fun, which is why photo logging is such an important feature in our opinion. The more effortless it is to log, the more you’ll do it, and the more you’ll get out of your food log app of choice. You also want to go into your search knowing how much you’re able to invest in a food tracking app. Some apps are expensive, offering premium membership features like an online community or one-on-one coaching to support you.
