How We Build Your Meal Plan
See how ingredient choices and portions produce the estimates beside your meals.
Where Nutrition Data Comes From
The bundled catalog stores food descriptions, USDA FoodData Central identifiers, weighing states and kcal, protein, carbs and fat per 100 g. Values are loaded locally, not requested from a live nutrition API. Individual records have not been independently reconciled during this content revision; source links show the recorded provenance.
How Meals Are Selected
A deterministic rule set chooses the first permitted food from ordered alternatives. Breakfast starts with oats, banana and yogurt when allowed; other meals combine a protein, grain, vegetable and optional oil. Plant-based mode excludes catalog foods marked animal-derived. There is no AI nutritionist.
How Portions Are Adjusted
The generator tests increases and decreases of 5 g within each food’s minimum and maximum. Up to 120 passes reduce a squared relative error across calories and all three macros. It stops when no improvement is found. Bounds and search steps are application choices; a perfect match is not guaranteed.
Example: breakfast before adjustment
This is the actual unrestricted breakfast seed, before optimization, not a final recommendation. Values below are calculated from the bundled catalog, with each per-100-g value multiplied by portion / 100.
| Ingredient | Source record | Weight basis | Portion | kcal | Protein (g) | Carbs (g) | Fat (g) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oats | USDA 169705 | dry | 60 g | 233.40 | 10.14 | 39.78 | 4.14 |
| Banana | USDA 173944 | peeled edible portion | 120 g | 106.80 | 1.31 | 27.36 | 0.40 |
| Greek yogurt | USDA 170894 | ready to eat | 180 g | 106.20 | 18.36 | 6.48 | 0.70 |
Raw and Cooked Weights
Use the state on each ingredient. Dry rice is not cooked rice; yogurt is ready to eat. Raw or cooked weight?
Targets vs. Meal Plan Estimates
Targets come from body inputs. Plan estimates sum the final ingredient quantities. These are separate datasets. Catalog calories need not exactly equal protein × 4 + carbs × 4 + fat × 9. Display rounding can add small differences.
Food Preferences and Exclusions
Excluded IDs are filtered out. If no permitted alternative exists, generation reports that too few foods remain. These filters do not verify allergens or cross-contamination safety.
Swaps and Recalculation
A swap proposes up to three alternatives from food families, matching approximate ingredient calories and rounding to 5 g. Candidates outside portion bounds are skipped. Applying one changes that meal and recalculates daily totals from ingredients; other meals remain unchanged. Undo restores the previous meal. If no candidate matches, the interface says so.
Recipe Videos and Images
Videos are cooking inspiration selected by ingredients, not verified versions of the calculated meal. Extra oils, sauces and portions are not included automatically. Food images are illustrations, not promises of your finished dish. Remote YouTube thumbnails may load before playback; the player loads on request.
Limitations and Sources
Matching macros does not establish complete micronutrient coverage, medical suitability or food safety. USDA data documentation describes food composition variability. How we calculate your targets · Build a plan.
Content revised November 4, 2026.