Public
USDA
Free and public, financed by US taxpayers. Laboratory-analyzed values for whole and generic foods. Any app can build on it, and the good ones do.
The Staff-Verified Food Database Every Food Checked Before You Log It
Free, with no ads and no account required.
A food tracker is only as good as the data underneath it. MyNetDiary is a verified food database app in the literal sense: every branded and restaurant food is reviewed by trained nutrition staff before you can log it, and its generic foods come from the USDA and the NCC reference databases that clinical research relies on. Verified nutritional data, no unreviewed user submissions, no guessing which duplicate is right.
In an independent 2026 validation, MyNetDiary's three-day energy estimate came within 5 kcal of the dietitian reference, an absolute error of 0.2%.*
*Bayram and Ozturkcan, Nutrition and Health, 2026; 13 apps, standardized menus, controlled entry. Results describe database accuracy, not every user's experience.
- Over 2 million foods, verified by staff
- Up to 108 nutrients per entry
- 2,500–3,500 foods reviewed daily
The MyNetDiary Food Database at a Glance
| Database | Over 2 million foods; every branded and restaurant entry staff-verified before publishing |
|---|---|
| Sources | USDA and NCC research-grade sources: USDA public, NCC under a commercial license |
| Nutrients tracked | Up to 108 nutrients per food entry, with detailed tracking of vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients |
| Daily maintenance | 2,500–3,500 foods reviewed and updated through the PhotoFood pipeline; duplicates removed within 24 hours |
| Coverage | US, Canada, UK, and Australia; 1.9M+ packaged foods, 1,325,000 barcodes, 2,423 restaurant chains |
| Independent validation | Energy within 5 kcal of the dietitian reference, a 0.2% error (Nutrition and Health, 2026) |
| Licensed by | More than 50 other apps and services, including Noom and Lifesum, which licensed earlier versions; the full, current NCC-enriched 108-nutrient depth ships only inside MyNetDiary |
Recognized by
- Forbes Health ranked MyNetDiary #1 in Best Weight Loss Apps of 2025
- Am. Journal of Preventive Medicine highest behavioral-strategies score of 30 apps
- Journal of Medical Internet Research peer-reviewed study of 5,132 users (2026)
- U.S. News & World Report named MyNetDiary best for overall tracking
- The New York Times called MyNetDiary simpler, quicker, and better-looking than the competition
- Today's Dietitian noted “a staff of RDs experienced in weight management, diabetes, cardiovascular health”
32 million people trust MyNetDiary
What Makes a Food Database “Verified”?
A verified database means each entry was either checked by a qualified human before publishing or came from a source that is itself the reference. That happens at two levels. Level one is the research-grade foundation: laboratory-analyzed data from the USDA and the NCC (Nutrition Coordinating Center, University of Minnesota), the gold reference clinical studies are measured against, which needs no re-checking. Level two is what separates trackers in daily use: branded and restaurant foods, where staff verify completeness, correct attribution, real serving sizes, and duplicate prevention before an entry appears in search results. Those checks target the exact failure modes of typed-in data: values entered under the wrong brand, per-package numbers filed as per-serving, and a dozen versions of the same yogurt, each with a different calorie count.
Most large food databases skip level two entirely and publish whatever users type in. For the full framework, the failure modes of crowdsourcing, and the independent validation research, see our guide to calorie tracker database accuracy, part of the diet tracker apps insider's guide.
Where Does the Nutrition Data Come From?
From the two sources nutrition researchers actually use, with a difference worth knowing: one is public and one is not. USDA food data is free and public, financed by US taxpayers, and it anchors whole and generic foods with laboratory-analyzed values. Any app can build on it, and the good ones do. The NCC database is commercial and expensive, and licensing it is the step most apps never take. It is the depth engine: NCC supports up to 178 nutrients per food, which is why MyNetDiary exposes up to 108 per entry, including omega fatty acids and amino acids.
Commercial license
NCC, University of Minnesota
Commercial and expensive. Up to 178 nutrients per food. Licensing it is the step most apps never take, and it is how MyNetDiary reaches up to 108 per entry.
Both sources are documented publicly: USDA FoodData Central and the Nutrition Coordinating Center. The public source explains why many apps look similar at the whole-food level; the commercial one explains why so few match the depth.
How Does the PhotoFood Pipeline Keep the Whole Catalog Current?
Through a daily verification operation, not a one-time import. When you photograph a food label in the app, trained database staff research the product, enter it with full attribution and servings, and a QA reviewer double-checks the change before it goes live, typically within 24 hours. The same team reviews and updates 2,500–3,500 foods every day: new products added, reformulated products corrected, obsolete foods retired, and duplicates removed within 24 hours of being found.
-
Submit
You photograph the label in the app.
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Research
Staff enter the product, attribution, and servings.
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QA double-check
Every change is reviewed before it goes live.
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Live
Typically within 24 hours.
- 2,500–3,500 foods reviewed and updated every day
- Duplicates removed within 24 hours
Packaged food changes constantly. Vendors rebrand, reformulate, and resize servings, so a database that is not maintained daily decays quietly while still looking big. A cereal drops its sugar by two grams, a protein bar shrinks from 60 to 52 grams, a restaurant chain retires half a menu: within a day or two of the label reaching the team, the entry reflects it, and the outdated version is gone rather than living on beside the new one. For a photo tour of the catalog work itself, see inside the MyNetDiary food database. The pipeline is also why a missing food is a solvable problem in MyNetDiary: photograph the label and it becomes a verified entry, instead of you typing it in from the label yourself. Try it with your next food label on the App Store or Google Play.
What Is Nutrient Completeness?
Nutrient completeness — the number of nutrient fields populated per food entry. It is the metric most database comparisons skip.
A database can list millions of foods while knowing almost nothing about each one. Manufacturer labels publish around a dozen nutrient fields, so a label-typed or crowdsourced entry can never carry more than that, no matter how large the database around it grows. Research-grade enrichment is what fills a profile out: connecting a food to research-source data is how an entry goes from label basics to a full picture with iron, vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, and B vitamins.
That is the practical difference between database size and nutrient completeness. Sixty million entries with twelve fields each will tell you less about your diet than two million entries carrying up to 108 wherever the source data supports it. If you track for any reason beyond calories, completeness is the number to compare.
What Do Independent Validation Studies Show?
In the most recent independent test, MyNetDiary's three-day energy estimate came within 5 kcal of the dietitian reference, an absolute error of 0.2%. That result comes from a 2026 validation study in Nutrition and Health, in which researchers at Istanbul Gelisim University entered the same dietitian-designed three-day menus into 13 food-logging apps and compared each app's totals with the reference values. Of the 13 apps tested, only MyNetDiary and FatSecret came that close, while the largest overestimate exceeded 700 kcal per day. The same study rated MyNetDiary highest of 17 apps on the Mobile App Rating Scale and counted the most features.
0.2%
MyNetDiary's absolute energy error over three days against the dietitian reference; within 5 kcal.
Highest quality score of 17 apps (4.39 of 5) and the most features counted in the same study.
| App | Energy difference | Absolute error |
|---|---|---|
| MyNetDiary | −4 kcal | 0.2% |
| FatSecret | 0 kcal | 0.0% |
| Lose It! | −32 kcal | 1.6% |
| YAZIO | +77 kcal | 3.8% |
| MyFitnessPal | +157 kcal | 7.8% |
| Lifesum | +475 kcal | 23.7% |
| Cronometer | +717 kcal | 35.7% |
Two earlier studies from the University of Sydney add context. A 2024 evaluation in Nutrients found MyNetDiary's energy error on a Western diet among the smallest of 16 apps, about 117 kcal against an average of about 250 kcal, rated it third of 18 for app quality, and, like every app tested, found it far less accurate on Asian mixed dishes, a limitation of English-language food databases generally. A 2015 assessment in JMIR mHealth and uHealth ranked MyNetDiary second of 28 popular apps for overall quality; its 2014 energy test also flagged overestimation, which is the gap the daily verification pipeline described above was built to close.
The caveats are the studies' own: results reflect controlled entry of standardized menus by trained researchers, single app storefronts, and specific diets, so they measure database accuracy rather than every user's experience. They are also the only kind of evidence that settles an accuracy claim about a verified food database app: independent, peer-reviewed, and reproducible. Run your own test in MyNetDiary today: grab the free app on the App Store or Google Play, no account required to start.
How Do Verified and Crowdsourced Databases Compare?
The pattern across major trackers is consistent: the biggest databases are the least verified, and the verified databases differ in depth. The table below compares database source, verification method, size, and nutrients tracked.
| App | Database source | Verification | Size | Nutrients tracked | Free tier ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MyNetDiary | USDA + NCC + manufacturer and restaurant data | Staff-verified branded and restaurant foods, 2,500–3,500 per day | Over 2 million | Up to 108 | No ads |
| Cronometer | 10+ curated sources including USDA + NCC | Curation team; user submissions reviewed | 1.2M | Up to 95 | Ads in free tier |
| MyFitnessPal | Company-added and user-added entries | Company-reviewed foods plus public user submissions | 20M+ | 21 | Ads in free tier |
| Lose It! | Company and user entries | User submissions; verification model per Lose It! documentation | 60M+ | 28 (Premium) | Ads in free tier |
| MacroFactor | Research databases + Open Food Facts | Verified user submissions | 1.36M | ~57 | No free tier |
Reading the table left to right: source determines the ceiling, verification determines whether entries meet it, and nutrient count shows how much of the ceiling each app implements. A larger unverified database mostly adds more copies of the same foods, each slightly different, with no way to tell which entry to trust.
Sources and methodology. Database sizes, verification models, nutrient counts, and free-tier features were checked against each company’s official website or support documentation in September 2026 (Cronometer support center, Data Sources; MyFitnessPal Help, food data and check-marked items; MacroFactor help center; Lose It! help center). Apps change often, so figures are dated rather than permanent.
Who Relies on This Database?
More than 50 other diet apps and services license the MyNetDiary food database. Noom and Lifesum, for example, licensed earlier and therefore smaller versions of it. The catalog is also used in academic and clinical research. Every licensed version ships without NCC enrichment, which cannot be redistributed, so even apps built on our database receive less than MyNetDiary users get: the full, current 108-nutrient catalog exists only inside MyNetDiary.
- 1.9M+ packaged foods
- 1,325,000 barcodes
- 3,478 vendors
- 2,423 restaurant chains
- Licensed by more than 50 apps and services
The operation behind it runs at consumer scale: 1,325,000 barcodes, 1.9M+ packaged foods, and foods from 3,478 vendors including 2,423 restaurant chains, all under daily staff verification. Registered dietitians work with clients on this data foundation every day through Professional Connect, and in the monthly Diet App Scorecard, MyNetDiary has held the most consistent recent average user review rating among major trackers.
Where Another App Fits Better
If your priority is connecting many health devices and charting any variable against another on verified data, Cronometer is the closest alternative, and our head-to-head comparison covers that choice in depth. For everyone whose priority is logging real food fast against verified data, from barcode to free nutrition tracking to the deepest nutrient view available, this verified food database app was built for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do MyNetDiary and Cronometer use the same nutrition data?
The two apps keep separate food databases, both built on the same research-grade sources as Cronometer's, USDA and NCC. Beyond that shared foundation, MyNetDiary adds its staff-verified catalog of branded and restaurant foods and tracks up to 108 nutrients per entry, while the other adds further curated sources and its own reviewed community entries.
What does staff-verified mean for a food database?
It means trained nutrition staff review every branded and restaurant entry for accuracy before it becomes available to users, instead of user submissions publishing as-is. MyNetDiary's team reviews and updates 2,500-3,500 foods daily, with a QA double-check on every change.
How many nutrients does MyNetDiary track?
Up to 108 nutrients per food entry, including omega fatty acids and amino acids from the NCC database license: calories and macros plus the vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients most apps skip, so you see the full picture rather than only the label basics.
Which calorie tracking app has the most accurate food database?
No single independent study settles this for every food and diet. In the 2026 validation study using standardized three-day menus, MyNetDiary and FatSecret produced the energy estimates closest to the reference records. Beyond that, accuracy depends on source data, verification of branded foods, serving sizes, duplicate control, and nutrient completeness, and MyNetDiary's verified catalog provides the broadest branded and restaurant coverage in a consumer app.
Why does nutrient completeness matter?
Nutrient completeness is the number of nutrient fields populated per food entry. Label-typed entries carry roughly a dozen fields; entries linked to research-grade data reveal iron, vitamin D, omega-3s, and B vitamins that affect energy, immunity, and long-term health.
How big is MyNetDiary's food database?
Over 2 million verified foods across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, including 1.9M+ packaged foods, 1,325,000 barcodes, and foods from 3,478 vendors and 2,423 restaurant chains, growing and updating daily rather than accumulating unreviewed submissions.
Do other apps use MyNetDiary's database?
Yes. More than 50 apps and services license the MyNetDiary food database. Noom and Lifesum, for example, licensed earlier versions of it. The licensed version does not include NCC enrichment, which cannot be redistributed, so the full, current 108-nutrient depth is available only inside MyNetDiary itself.
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