How to log
- Open the Chat tab.
- Type what you ate in the box that says "Log your food, or ask something...". For example, "2 eggs on toast" or "350g Greek yoghurt with 30g granola".
- Tap send.
A food name on its own, such as "Apple", is treated as something you ate. A question about a food ("would a roll fit in my day?") is answered, not logged. Cal offers to log it if you want.
Quantities and units
Give an amount where you can. Grams and millilitres work, and so do pieces ("2 slices"), servings ("1 portion") and containers ("half a pot", "two cans"). A container uses the product's own pack size. If you leave the amount out, Cal uses a typical portion.
Say how the food was prepared if you know. "150g cooked rice" and "150g dry rice" log very different numbers, and Cal keeps words like cooked, raw, grilled or fried.
Brands
Include the brand when it matters, as in "Grenade bar" or "Lucozade Sport". Cal keeps the brand in the lookup so it finds that product.
Several items in one message
Items in one sentence are logged together as one meal, with each food as a separate ingredient ("porridge, banana and coffee"). Separate meals in one message become separate logs ("a banana for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch").
What Cal does with it
Cal breaks the message into foods and amounts, then looks each one up in the food database. Where it finds a match, the numbers come from the database. Where it does not, Cal uses its own estimate for that food. If you give the calories or macros yourself, those are used as stated. See Where the numbers come from.
The log card
Each log appears in chat as a card showing:
- the name and meal type (tap the meal type to change it)
- Calories, Protein, Carbs and Fat
- each ingredient with its amount and calories
- Adjust to edit the log, Favourite to save it for later, and a ⋮ menu with Log another, Report data and Remove log
The same card appears in the Diary.