Food database and food logging.

The database

About 2.6 million foods, imported from USDA (its SR Legacy, Foundation and Branded foods) and from Open Food Facts, plus café and bakery items typed in from the brands' own published nutrition figures.

Size is not what makes a food database usable. A collection that large carries near duplicates, and the right chicken breast can be the fourteenth result with that name. So Evobody keeps a checked core of about two thousand foods and always lists it first:

• Evobody approved foods, each signed off by a person, marked with a green tick;
• library foods, marked LIB, whose numbers are copied from a USDA or Open Food Facts record.

Every search also checks live online food databases, Open Food Facts and FatSecret, and adds what they find. A food that is nowhere can be made in a minute: a client creates it with its brand, barcode, serving and photo, and it comes up in their own searches from then on.

Searching

Before a client types anything, the search shows their usual foods for that meal, then the foods they log most. Once they type, exact names come first, then other names for the same food, with typos forgiven, and checked foods come before the rest. If they type a brand, that brand's foods come first.

Every result shows its calories and macros for a serving, such as a pot of yoghurt, so a client can see the cost of what they actually eat. Opening one gives:

• the amount, in servings or in grams, starting from what they had last time;
• the calories, protein, carbs and fat for that amount;
• what else is in it where the data has it: fibre, sugars, saturated fat and cholesterol, minerals, and vitamins as a share of the daily value;
• the meal it goes into, and a star to make it a usual.

Ask for 150 servings of yoghurt and it checks whether you meant 150 grams.

Barcodes

One scanner works on every phone, in the app and in a browser. It reads the common supermarket codes by itself once the barcode is in the square, uses the torch where the phone has one, and takes a typed number instead.

A scan checks the client's own pinned barcodes first, then Evobody's database, then Open Food Facts live, and keeps what it finds for next time. A product nobody has yet can be added on the spot and its barcode pinned, so it scans straight in from then on. With no signal, a product scanned before still scans; a new barcode needs a connection.

Photos

Scan a meal, the gold button on the food log, sends a photo of the plate to Evo SI. It names what it sees and builds the entry with calories and macros, and where a checked food matches, the checked numbers are used instead of an estimate.

Nothing is logged until the client approves it. Before they do, they can change the amount in servings or grams, add more items, swap a food, pick the meal, rename it and star it. The photo goes to their coach with the meal.

A photo scan is one Evo SI question. Every client has ten free, then it is $3 a month for each client the coach switches Evo SI on for, on Coach, or on Studio once it opens. It is optional: switched off for a client, it is hidden from their app and costs nothing. A scan that gets no answer is not counted. A client can also describe a meal in words to Evo SI in its chat. Without Evo SI, a client can still send their coach a photo of a meal, which logs nothing.

Usual meals, saved meals and last time

Most people eat the same handful of things most weeks, and the difference between logging as a habit and logging abandoned is how long the boring repeat takes.

• Usuals: the star makes a food a usual for that meal, waiting at the top of the search.
• My meals: a saved meal of several foods, or a ready meal or kit with its brand, barcode, photo and number of portions.
• Last time: opens the most recent day with food on it from the past week, and the client picks what they want again.

Targets, set by the coach

The coach sets each client's calories, protein, carbs and fat, either in grams or as calories with percentages, and either the same every day, split into training and rest days, or set day by day through the week. A coach's workflow can also set them from a client's weight and phase. The client sees what they have eaten against those targets on the food log and on their home screen.

Meal plans

Every client with targets gets a meal plan built to them. The coach can start one from a template or from another client's plan, and set each meal's pick, its alternatives in order, which swaps are allowed and a note. The client sees the day's plan, and a full menu of every option for each meal with the coach's picks marked.

Log this meal puts a planned meal in the food log at the right amount, a client can swap it where their coach allows, and a meal can go on the shopping list.

Allergies and diet rules

A client records their allergies from fourteen common allergens and their own notes, their diets, foods they will not eat and any condition, in their own settings. Those rules are enforced in three places:

• The meal plan leaves out anything that breaks an allergy, even the coach's own pick.
• Recipes are checked for allergens, and a recipe that cannot be cleared counts as containing it.
• Evo SI's answers are checked, and corrected if one approves a food the client should not have.

A food a client finds and logs by hand is their own choice, so search and barcodes show every food.

What the coach sees

On the coach's dashboard, each client's nutrition card shows the last 30 days: how many were logged, a bar for each day against the target line, which steps when the target changed, and green at 80% or more. The client's nutrition page adds the last ten days and a day by day history of what they ate, with the photos of their meals. Each entry is saved the moment the client logs it and is there when the coach opens the page.

Nutrition is in every plan

Food logging, the database, targets and meal plans are in every Evobody plan, including the free one for five clients. That is not true everywhere. Everfit sells meal plans and recipe books as an add-on at $39 a month, from its pricing page, and ABC Trainerize sells advanced nutrition coaching at $20 a month, or $45 from its Pro 30 plan, from its pricing page. My PT Hub and PT Distinction include nutrition on their plans (My PT Hub's pricing, PT Distinction's pricing), which is to their credit. The full working is on alternatives.

No add-ons, now or ever. Other coaching apps charge extra for add-ons. We never will: every coaching feature is on every plan, everything we build next comes in too, and you never pay for our progress.

Where the food data comes from

Three sources, each credited the way it asks.

• USDA FoodData Central. Generic foods and many branded ones come from the US Department of Agriculture's FoodData Central: its SR Legacy, Foundation Foods and Branded Foods data. USDA publishes it in the public domain under CC0 1.0 and asks users to name it as the source. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center. FoodData Central. Available from https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/, cited 8 October 2026.
• Open Food Facts. Barcoded products from around the world come from Open Food Facts, and a barcode scan looks a product up there. Contains data from Open Food Facts, available under the Open Database License.
• fatsecret. A search can also reach fatsecret live, for supermarket own brands and restaurant dishes. Its results are shown live and are not kept in Evobody's food database. Powered by fatsecret Platform API .

Questions about food logging