Tips & Tricks: Searching For A Food
If you’re having trouble finding the right foods or want to learn how to log food more efficiently, then you’ve come to the right place! There is so much functionality in our food search that you have yet to discover.
Read on for time-saving food search tips!
Getting To The Food Search
First things first, let’s get you to the food search menu.
On mobile, tap the + button > Add Food.
On web, click Diary > + Food
Searching For Food
Once you’ve opened the food search menu, a list of your recently logged foods will appear. Tap on the orange sort button (shown as ‘Most Recent’ in the screenshot above) to change how these entries are sorted.
If you don’t see what you want in those selections, there are two options to search for a food:
Text-based Search
To use our text-based search, which we recommend to get the most accurate and comprehensive data, simply start typing!
Barcode Scanner
If you’re on the mobile app and looking for a branded food that has a nutrition label and a barcode, using our Barcode Scanner is the easiest way to find what you’re looking for.
Tap the icon to the right of the text box and hover your camera over the barcode of the item.
If the item is in our database, it will pull up the food entry and you can easily add that to your Diary.
If the food isn’t in our database, you can quickly create a Custom Food by taking two photos – one of the product and one of the nutrition label. The app will read the nutrition label and automatically create a Custom Food for you. You can add this Custom Food entry to your Diary right away and will have the option to submit it to our curation queue, which will be verified for accuracy before getting added to the public database.
Multi-Add
Our multi-add functionality allows you to search and add multiple food entries at once, speeding up your food logging process.
On mobile, tap the orange icon within the text search bar. Toggle on ‘Enable Multi-Add’.
Then, you can continue to search for multiple food entries, check the boxes and they will all be added to your Diary in one fell swoop.
You can even create your own Custom Recipe from these selections.
Customize How Food Entries Are Sorted
You can choose how your food entries are sorted within the food search. Choose from:
- A to Z
- Z to A
- Most Frequent
- Most Recent
On mobile, tap the orange icon and text to change or tap the icon to bring up the full list of options.
On web, tap the orange icon within the text search bar.
Using The Food Search Filters
You can use filters to hone in on specific search results, allowing you to find foods faster.
On mobile, tap the orange icon within the text search bar.
On web, click the icon within the text search bar.
Filter By Category
Use the categories to filter into more specific search results. Categories available include:
- All
- Favorites: scroll down to learn how to add food entries into this category.
- Common Foods: This will show results from our highest quality nutrition databases and will typically have the most nutrition information available for a particular food.
- Supplements
- Brands: This will show store-bought, brand name products.
- Restaurants: This will show foods from restaurants that are included in our database.
- Custom: This will show your Custom Foods, Custom Meals and Custom Recipes that you’ve created in your Cronometer account. It will also show any Custom Foods, Meals or Recipes that have been shared with you by other users.
Filter By Database
The letters that show up on the right-hand side of a food entry indicates which database it is coming from. You’ll typically see the following:
- USDA
- NCCDB
- CRDB
- Custom
Food entries from our lab-analyzed databases like the USDA and NCCDB will have the most accurate nutrition data. If accuracy is a priority for you, use this filter to only show results from our lab-analyzed databases. You can learn more about our data sources and how to get the most accurate data here.
Adding Your Food Entry
Once you have found the food you are looking for, select it from the list. You can then change the serving size, quantity and the group it will be added to in your Diary.
By upgrading to Cronometer Gold, you can also choose to add and change the Timestamp.
In this section you can also see the full nutritional breakdown of the food. Scroll down to see calorie, macronutrient and vitamins and mineral content of this food.
We will list the data source and the number of nutrients included in this food entry, so you can quickly assess the accuracy of this entry.
For example, on the entry below, you’ll see the data source as NCCDB and it has 82 listed nutrients, which is a nice, full nutrient profile.
When Better Alternatives Exist
We’re now using AI to automatically ensure you can access better, more accurate data.
If a user submitted, branded product or restaurant food has a similar food entry in one of our lab-analyzed databases, we will cross reference and automatically add the nutrients that the entry is missing. You’ll see that this is the case when there are two data sources listed and a magic wand icon appears with the listed nutrients.
Adding A Food To Favorites
Mark your frequently eaten foods as favourites to find them easily later on.
On mobile, you can tap on the star beside the name of the food or tap the icon in the top right hand side, then ‘Add to Favorites’.
On web, click the star beside the name of the food.
Then, use the favorites category filter to see all of your favorite foods in one place.
