Data sources

Whole foods and their nutrients come from the Australian Food Composition Database , © Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), used under the FSANZ Data User Licence Agreement , which is based on the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia  licence. FSANZ does not endorse MealPlus.

There are limitations associated with food composition databases. Food composition data used in the database or databases may represent an average of the nutrient content of a particular sample of foods and ingredients, determined at a particular time. The nutrient composition of foods and ingredients can vary substantially between batches and brands because of a number of factors, including changes in season, processing practices and ingredient source, and methods of calculation.

This data is based on Australian data, and Australian data may not be appropriate for use in other countries.

A few whole foods the Australian database does not include — swordfish, some other fish, and shellfish such as rock lobster and abalone — come from FoodData Central , U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (SR Legacy, 2018), which is in the public domain. The USDA does not endorse MealPlus.

These are American figures for foods as sold in the United States. MealPlus has renamed them in the Australian style, works out their energy and available carbohydrate the way the Australian database does, and leaves out anything the two databases measure differently. Where both databases have a food, the Australian one is used.

Menu items from the larger takeaway chains come from the nutrition information each chain publishes for its Australian menu. The figures are for one item as sold; MealPlus works them out per 100 g from the published weight, and keeps only what the chain declared. Each item’s page says which chain, and when its figures were read. Menus and recipes change, so check the chain’s own figures where it matters. The chains do not endorse MealPlus, and their names and products are their own.

Pubs don’t publish nutrition figures, so the Pub classics and Bar drinks under Takeaway are MealPlus’s own estimates, and say so wherever they show. Each meal is built from typical Australian pub serves using the Australian Food Composition Database, and checked against Australian menus that do print kilojoules; drinks use typical pours and recipes. Serves vary from place to place, often by a quarter or more, so each meal comes in small, regular and large.

Packaged products, found by barcode or search, come from Open Food Facts , a database made by contributors from photos of packaging. The database is available under the Open Database License  and its contents under the Database Contents License . MealPlus does not use Open Food Facts product photos. Brand names belong to their owners, who do not endorse MealPlus.

• Uses a selection of the Australian Food Composition Database, and rewrites food names to read naturally, for example “Chicken, breast, lean flesh, raw” as “Chicken breast (raw)”. The published name is shown on each food’s page.
• Adds categories, tags and serve sizes to foods.
• Keeps only Open Food Facts products with a usable nutrition panel, and converts their figures to the units used here.
• For some plain supermarket products, fills in the vitamins and minerals their label does not give from the matching generic food in the Australian Food Composition Database. For meat, chicken and fish those borrowed figures are adjusted for the product’s protein. Each such product says so on its page.
• Adds up meals and days, and compares them with targets and nutrient reference values.

The food data MealPlus uses, including our changes to it, is available under the same licences it came under. Email hello@mealplus.com.au and we will send you a copy. This covers the food catalogue only, never anything about the people who use MealPlus.

The body on each exercise’s page is drawn from react-native-body-highlighter  by ELABBASSI Hicham, used under the MIT licence, in MealPlus’s own colours.