Additional Data Points for AI powered API methods: Images, Allergens and Dietary Preferences

With our latest feature upgrade yesterday, we have enhanced our existing AI powered API methods Image Recognition and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to now also return the following food item attributes:

food images (see ‘food_images’: three .png files of different sizes)
allergens (see 'allergen’: covering 10 different allergens)
dietary preferences (see 'preference’: specifying vegan and/or vegetarian)

for all underlying and identified food objects in all image and NLP inputs (where these attributes are available for the given food item). In order to return these 3 data points directly, please format your POST request to have:

“include_food_data” = true

Previously, these 3 data points were only available via food.get.v4, food.get.v5, foods.search.v3 and foods.search.v4 hence in order to return these data points via our AI powered methods, an additional API call to food.get.v4 or food.get.v5 would have been required.

This requirement is now obsolete.

Please Note:

We currently publish food images, allergens for dietary preferences for all generics and composite generic foods globally. More information is available here.

More information on our AI powered API methods is available here.

Our latest Image Recognition REST API method documentation is available here:

Image Recognition | fatsecret Platform API

Advanced image recognition capabilities via API to analyze photos and deliver accurate nutritional information for all food types, including

platform.fatsecret.com

Our latest Natural Language Processing REST API method is available here:

Natural Language Processing* | fatsecret Platform API

Advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities via API across 24 languages with food analysis for all food types, including generic

platform.fatsecret.com

Upgraded fatsecret Platform API Methods: Enhanced Food Data for Branded Foods & Barcode Search

We’re excited to announce the launch of three upgraded API methods designed to enhance how partners interact with our global food and nutrition database. These latest updates improve branded and manufactured food data granularity, enable faster access to comprehensive food details, and streamline search functionality - all while keeping backward compatibility in mind.

Here’s what’s new:

1. food.find_id_for_barcode.v2: Barcode Lookup, Evolved

Our upgraded barcode lookup method now returns the entire food object, including its full nutritional breakdown, rather than just the food_id. This is ideal for partners looking to simplify their data flow: One call now returns all food information.

The method also supports optional parameters previously found in food.get.v4, including:

include_sub_categories
include_food_images
include_food_attributes
flag_default_serving
region
language

This allows for even more targeted results based on your app or user requirements. Our updated REST API documentation for food.find_id_for_barcode.v2 is available here:

Foods: Find Id For Barcode | fatsecret Platform API

platform.fatsecret.com

2. food.get.v5: Standardized Servings for Branded / Manufactured and Restaurant Foods

Version 5 of the food.get endpoint introduces standardized derived servings (e.g., 100g, 100ml or 1oz and 100g) for food items where food_type = ‘brand’ that have an existing serving amount.

Please note: Each newly derived serving:

Will use serving_id = 0
Cannot be used with food_entry.create
Will be automatically included in responses for eligible Brand foods

This enhancement provides a more consistent and comparable nutrient view across branded and manufactured products globally and marks a big win for dietitians, nutrition apps, and data scientists alike.

Our updated REST API documentation for food.get.v5 is available here:

Foods: Get By Id | fatsecret Platform API

platform.fatsecret.com

3. foods.search.v4: Aligned with food.get.v5

The latest search endpoint, foods.search.v4, ensures consistency with the updated food.get.v5 structure by also including these new standardized servings in search results.

Our updated REST API documentation for foods.search.v4 is available here:

Foods: Search | fatsecret Platform API

platform.fatsecret.com

When Will These Updates Roll Out?

The additional servings will be rolled out globally across all eligible Brand food items between September 30th and December 29th, 2025. Any new or edited branded food entries during this period will automatically include the new standardized servings.

These new methods mark another step forward in fatsecret’s mission to power nutrition innovation through clean, complete, and accessible data globally. We encourage partners and API developers to begin integrating the new versions today to stay ahead of the curve.

Want to see how these new and our other API methods can enhance your digital products?

Please get in touch with us - or contact your fatsecret account manager for an in-detail walkthrough.

lowercase, on purpose: we’re officially fatsecret

We exist to make weight loss simpler, more sustainable and genuinely personal. That mission shows up in everything we do - and in how we present ourselves.

In October 2024, we completed a style update across our apps, websites and customer-facing channels: our brand name is now written all lowercase: fatsecret. You’ve probably noticed this already in-product, communications and on our social channels. This post is your single, linkable reference that confirms the change and explains why it matters.

why lowercase?

Lowercase looks simple because it is simple - and that’s the point. For modern, digital-first brands (think adidas, lululemon), letter case is more than typography; it’s a signal. For us, it signals:

Simplicity. We remove complexity so you can focus on what works. Lowercase reflects that minimalist, get-out-of-the-way approach.
Humility & Partnership. We’re here to support your goals, not shout over them. A quieter look matches a more human tone.
Digital Future. It aligns our identity with the product experience you already know: clean, approachable and helpful.

the official style

Please use the following when writing about our company, products and services.

Always use: fatsecret

Never use: Fatsecret, FatSecret, FATSECRET, or Fat Secret

This all-lowercase form is our standard across consumer and business sites, mobile apps, communications and partner materials.

Quick usage examples

“Powered by fatsecret data.”
“Start your weight-loss journey with fatsecret.”
“The fatsecret app supports sustainable weight loss.”

(If a sentence begins with our name, please keep it lowercase: “fatsecret helps you…”.)

why now?

As our focus expands from tracking to empowering individualized, sustainable weight loss, we want every touchpoint to feel supportive, not prescriptive. Lowercase helps convey the brand friendliness and approachability behind that goal.

media and partner guidance

Use fatsecret in copy, UI, and metadata.
Match the casing in headlines, captions, alt text, and app store listings.
If you’re updating older content, changing the name style is appreciated but not required; please use fatsecret in any new mentions and forward-looking references.

Enhancing Food Recognition - A Major Update to our fatsecret Platform API

After releasing our first Image Recognition and Natural Language Processing capabilities in Q4 last year, we published a major enhancement to our Image Recognition model earlier this year.

What’s New?

Our latest Image Recognition v2 has been improved across all relevant parameters, including quality and latency as well as accuracy across all four food types (generics, composite generics, branded foods and restaurant items) helping our developer community globally provide their users with the most easy to use yet highly accurate food and nutrition services.

Image Recognition v2 supports:

Significantly Reduced Latency: Without compromising quality, inference time has been reduced by 80%, delivering results up to 5× faster.
Improved Parsing of Generic Foods: Better distinction between single-item generics and composite generics, factoring in preparation complexity to return more context-aware food matches.
Plain Nutrition Labels Ignored by Design: Submissions containing only nutrition facts panels are now automatically filtered out returning error 211.
Improved Handling of Mixed Food Images: Enhanced support for images containing multiple same-brand items alongside generic and composite generic foods, ensuring more accurate multi-item identification and separation.
More accurate Restaurant Food Detection: Improved recognition of restaurant-branded dishes including enhanced labeling accuracy and classification confidence.

On top of these enhancements, a free 14 day trial is available for all developers from the fatsecret Platform API Dashboard after logging into your Platform API account.

More information on our AI powered API methods is available here:

AI Nutrition API | Food Image Recognition & NLP for Health Apps

Add AI-powered food logging to your app with fatsecret’s APIs. Capture meals via photos, voice, or text with verified data in 56 countries.

platform.fatsecret.com

Integrating Image Recognition is simple:

Access: Available as optional add-ons for all fatsecret Premier and Premier Free developers.
Pricing: Usage-based costs apply, with flexible options to suit your needs.
Free Trial: Log into your Platform API Dashboard to activate your free 14 day trial today.

Resources to Help You Succeed

We’ve updated our Postman library to make implementation quick and easy. Plus, you can experience these features hands-on with our public API Demo - no coding required! Our updated REST API documentation for Image Recognition v2 is available here.

Any questions?

Please get in touch with our fatsecret Platform API team.

Next-Gen Food and Nutrition APIs with Image Recognition and Natural Language Processing

At fatsecret, innovation never stops. Over the past 15 years, we’ve heard your feedback, and we’re thrilled to unveil two groundbreaking API features that address the two most requested capabilities from our global developer community: Image Recognition and Natural Language Processing (NLP), designed to elevate how you deliver nutrition data to your users.

Revolutionizing Food Identification

Our advanced AI-powered solutions seamlessly transform user input—be it text, voice, or images—into actionable nutritional insights. Here’s how they work:

Image Recognition API: Identify foods and beverages in photos, estimate portion sizes, and match them against our verified nutrition datasets tailored to 56 regions and countries across the globe.
Natural Language Processing API: Accurately parse free-form text or voice to accurately detect food items, portions and nutritional values, mapped to a given country-specific dataset.

These solutions go beyond surface-level detection. They take into account your users’ language, region, and eating habits, applying proprietary algorithms to deliver highly accurate matches across 56 countries and 24 languages for generic, packaged and branded as well as restaurant foods.

Natural Language Processing example with a UK input in English

Above: Example of a UK text input in English via Natural Language Processing

Why Choose fatsecret Over General AI Solutions?

Generic AI solutions often struggle to deliver the consistent, precise and reliable region-specific nutrition insights required to power a successful health, wellness, fitness or medical application. Many developers have turned to us in the past months after struggling with:

Outdated information
Unverified nutritional content
Lack of support for region-specific datasets

With fatsecret, you get access to verified global nutrition data across generic foods, branded as well as restaurant foods—trusted by millions and designed to meet the needs of developers worldwide.

Above: Image Input via Image Recognition for a US output in English

Get Started Today

Integrating these features is simple:

Access: Available as optional add-ons for all fatsecret Premier and Premier Free developers.
Pricing: Usage-based costs apply, with flexible options to suit your needs.
Free Trial: Contact our Platform team to activate your trial today.

Resources to Help You Succeed

We’ve updated our Postman library to make implementation quick and easy. Plus, you can experience these features hands-on with our public API Demo—no coding required!

Why It Matters

With the addition of Image Recognition and Natural Language Processing, your apps can offer users a smoother, more intuitive food and nutrition experience. These tools empower you to deliver tailored insights and create a truly personalized journey for every user.

Image Input via Image Recognition from Spain with output in Spanish

Above: Image Input via Image Recognition for a Spanish output

Ready to elevate your user experience? Contact our Platform team to learn more or get started with a free trial

Introducing the New fatsecret Platform API Demo: No Coding Required!

We’re thrilled to announce a game-changing feature for the fatsecret Platform API - our brand new API demo! This exciting addition allows anyone to explore the full capabilities of our API without needing any coding skills. You can try it out right now at:

https://platform.fatsecret.com/api-demo

What Can You Do with the API Demo?

Our API demo showcases all the major features of the fatsecret Platform API, including:

- Auto-complete Food Search: Get search term suggestions instantly.

- Food Search: Find detailed nutrition information for foods in any available market/language combination.

- Barcode Scanning: Scan barcodes to retrieve nutritional data from food brands and manufacturers effortlessly.

- Recipe Search: Discover new recipes and their nutritional content.

With the API demo, you can explore our vast nutrition database that spans 56 global markets and supports 24 languages. Whether you’re performing an auto-complete search, scanning a barcode, or searching for a recipe, simply specify the market to get relevant nutrition data.

For food searches, you can specify both a language and a market, demonstrating the true localization capabilities of our Platform API. This feature provides access to our unique, verified nutrition datasets specific to each country.

Our API returns all major data points, including:

- Nutritional Values: Detailed information about calories, macros, and micronutrients.

- Allergens: Identify potential allergens in foods.

- Dietary Preferences: Filter results based on dietary needs.

- Food Images: View images for generic food items.

Join Our Community

Engage with our active developer community or reach out to us if you have any questions. We’re here to help you make the most of the fatsecret Platform API.

Happy (No-) Coding!

The fatsecret Platform API Team

New Data. Better Data. And Much More.

As the first quarter of 2024 is almost coming to a close, we wanted to provide our developer community with a brief update on several major enhancements that our team has delivered for our fatsecret Platform API over the past 5 months.

Allergens & Dietary Preferences.

One of the most requested capabilities in recent years from our wider developer community has been the ability to know and utilize the allergens and dietary preferences of foods. As of March 2024, these new data types have been added to the fatsecret Platform API with access to the most common 10 allergens as well as the dietary preferences “vegan” and “vegetarian” for all generic food items in our 55+ supported countries.

Our current list of allergens available via the fatsecret Platform API are:

Egg, Fish, Gluten, Lactose, Milk, Nuts, Peanuts, Sesame, Shellfish, Soy

Allergen and dietary preference attributes will become available for branded foods over coming months with a staged roll-out on a per product basis.

Food Images.

Another highly requested feature for many years has been the publication of food images. Similar to allergens and dietary preferences, the fatsecret Platform API will now provide high quality food images for all generic foods globally. At this stage, a single high quality, isolated image for a food item in a neutral setting with bright white background in .png file format is available.

Each food image file will be available in 3 sizes:

72x72 pixels
400x400 pixels
1024x1024 pixels

New API calls.

With these addition of the new data types, we have also published two upgrades to existing API calls to ensure these capabilities can be accessed and utilized by developers and are available both through food.get and food.search.

Please note that existing API calls (such as food.get.v3 and food.search.v2) remain available and fully functional to ensure backwards compatibility. The new API calls food.get.v4 and food.search.v3 are optional upgrades.

We will enable access to the new data types mentioned above at no additional cost for existing Premier and Premier Free clients. Please get in touch with our Platform API team to gain access and start using these new capabilities today.

New Language. Laskavo prosymo ukrayino!

We have received many requests to support Ukrainian as a new language and are pleased to release it as our 24th supported language. All existing Premier clients with access to localization can now return any given country dataset in Ukrainian by using the new language parameter “uk” as explained here.

Many more recipes.

Given the increased demand from developers to access delicious, high quality and nutritionally verified international recipes we have also just added an additional 1,000 recipes to our global recipe datasets, now covering more than 17,000 recipes from 55 countries. All recipes are country specific meaning they represent the local cuisine of the given country and are made up of local ingredients.

New ideas? More feature requests?

While we do have a solid roadmap for the upcoming iterations of our fatsecret Platform API across the coming weeks and months, we would love to hear from you what features you are missing and what additional ideas you might have. Feel free to reach out to our Platform API team or leave a comment in our dedicated developer forum, see: https://groups.google.com/g/fatsecret-platform-api

Thanks for your support,
The fatsecret Platform API Team.

New Website. New Features. Same Platform.

After a busy first half of the year, our developer team upped the pace even further in Q3 with the release of a full and fundamental overhaul of our fatsecret Platform API website. You can find our wonderful new Platform API site here http://platform.fatsecret.com/platform-api

Our new Platform API site comes with improved navigation, a more comprehensive accounts management dashboard as well as a complete revamp of our REST API documentation. Overall it’s packed full of useful information about API capabilities and features as well as providing user friendly resources.

As part of your account dashboard, developers can now manage their API keys as well as request account upgrades more easily - both for our regular Premier but also Premier Free tier.

Our new REST API documentation ensures developers have access to all the latest API calls in a more structured manner while also providing an audit history ensuring that previously published API calls can still be accessed and utilized.

If we can help you with the API or you want to learn more about us or our developer community, please get in touch or visit our dedicated developer forum. We also look forward to receiving your feedback on our new Platform API website and how we can improve it further.

We have several large updates scheduled for Q4 2023 - so stay tuned.

Thanks for your ongoing support,
The fatsecret Platform API Team

Mid-year Milestones

With the first half of 2023 coming to an end, we thought it would be worthwhile to briefly highlight some of the latest changes to our fatsecret Platform API.

More resources via Postman and Github

A few weeks ago, we published an extensive Postman as well as Github library to make it even easier to get started integrating our fatsecret Platform API. You can find our respective repositories here:

For Postman please see https://www.postman.com/fatsecret
For Github please see https://github.com/fatsecret-group

Our dedicated developer forum remains available here: https://groups.google.com/g/fatsecret-platform-api

New API method naming convention

As you might have noticed on Github or Postman, we have decided to follow a more universal and usage based API method naming convention, moving away from the plain technical method string. For example, our popular auto-complete search algorithm method can now be found in our documentation under “autocomplete search expression” whereby it was previously called “foods.autocomplete”. Similarly, our barcode scanning capabilities changed from “food.find_id_for_barcode” to “Find id for barcode”.

Please note that all link urls have not changed and remain the same.

Improved structure for Profile and non-Profile related calls as part of OAuth1.0

Historically many developers used our 3-legged OAuth capabilities (available via OAuth1.0) and we plan to continue supporting these methods. However, we realized that the structure provided in our documentation made it difficult to differentiate between regular OAuth1.0 API calls (such as food.get, foods.autocomplete or food.find_id_for_barcode) and the profile management capabilities. We have now split them and listed all profile related calls separately and grouped at the bottom of the OAuth1.0 documentation.

More visibility for our API localization nutrition data capabilities

We have listened to your feedback around making our API localization capabilities more visible and all the information on how to return localized nutrition results (available for 70+ countries and 23 languages) is now available in contextually relevant places as well as being located in our REST API documentation.

By default, every API query will be made against our US dataset and in the English language. If you are interested in using our localization capabilities to make queries to non-US datasets, please get in touch.

JSON arrays - in line.

Some developers who prefer using and receiving JSON (instead of xml) have previously reported issues with the JSON array serialization which have now been addressed. As part of this release, we have published some new updated API calls such as:

Unicode characters when using OAuth1.0

Finally, we have been made aware that some of you have had issues with certain unicode characters when generating OAuth1.0 signatures which have now been addressed.

If you want to learn more about us or our developer community, please get in touch or visit our dedicated developer forum.

Thanks for your ongoing support,

The fatsecret Platform API Team

Early head start to kick off 2023

With Q1 almost behind us, we wanted to provide a brief update on some of the bigger changes that have been deployed to our Platform API over the past 3 months. While there were many smaller changes to help improve various processes under the covers, there were some profound improvements that we thought are worth sharing with our wider developer community.

Search. Get. Filter. Repeat.

Based on feedback we gathered from our developers throughout 2022, we were able to design and develop several enhancements to our API’s search capabilities.

In order to return all nutritional values and every single data point that we provide for a food item, it is no longer necessary to use food.get as we now provide all data points via our new search - introducing: food.search.v2

The information returned through food.search.v2 covers not only the general food information such as :

food_id – the unique food identifier.
food_name – the name of the food, not including the brand name. E.G.: “Instant Oatmeal”.
food_type – takes the value “Brand” or “Generic”. Indicates whether the food is a brand or generic item – see food_type.
brand_name – the brand name, only when food_type is “Brand”. E.G.: “Quaker”.
food_url – URL of this food item on www.fatsecret.com

but also complete nutritional values for each food item that is returned according to the standard serving size option available.
This feature requires Premier access but is available to all our corporate clients as well as Premier Free users.

Recipe revelations.

In similar fashion, we have worked on the next iteration of our global recipe offering which provides not only access to more than 15,000 (and growing) curated recipes from around the world, but now also comes with enhanced recipe search capabilities. As part of our new recipe.search.v3 API call, we allow for all recipe related data points to be returned through the recipe search process (removing any requirement to make additional calls via recipe.get).

Moreover, this will allow developers to filter recipes based on a variety of (optional) search parameters such as calorie ranges, macro nutrient ranges, prep/cook time or the recipe type (e.g. “breakfast” or “dinner”).

And with the additional release of recipe_types.get.v2, this is now available globally on a per-country basis for all our 50+ markets that we currently cover.

If you want to learn more about us or our developer community, please get in touch or visit our dedicated developer forum.

Thanks for your ongoing support,

The fatsecret Platform API Team

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🔒 EXCLUSIVE: Gallery - Full Gallery 2025

Additional Data Points for AI powered API methods: Images, Allergens and Dietary Preferences

Upgraded fatsecret Platform API Methods: Enhanced Food Data for Branded Foods & Barcode Search

1. food.find_id_for_barcode.v2: Barcode Lookup, Evolved

2. food.get.v5: Standardized Servings for Branded / Manufactured and Restaurant Foods

3. foods.search.v4: Aligned with food.get.v5

lowercase, on purpose: we’re officially fatsecret

why lowercase?

the official style

Quick usage examples

why now?

media and partner guidance

Enhancing Food Recognition - A Major Update to our fatsecret Platform API

Integrating Image Recognition is simple:

Resources to Help You Succeed

Next-Gen Food and Nutrition APIs with Image Recognition and Natural Language Processing

Revolutionizing Food Identification

Why Choose fatsecret Over General AI Solutions?

Get Started Today

Resources to Help You Succeed

Why It Matters

Introducing the New fatsecret Platform API Demo: No Coding Required!

New Data. Better Data. And Much More.

New Website. New Features. Same Platform.

Mid-year Milestones

Early head start to kick off 2023

About

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