Nutrition Database API

A nutrition database API is not a SQL dump and not a CSV of every food on earth. It is a query interface: you send a name or a barcode, you get calories and macros for that food, you keep the row your user picked.

Calorie API is that interface. The catalog behind it is the 4M+ foods listed on the site, generic, branded, and restaurant-style, not limited to the United States. You do not receive the catalog. Bulk download and scraping are prohibited. Cache the foods people log. On Plus, the commercial license allows keeping a response for up to 30 days.

The queries

curl "https://api.calorieapi.com/api/v1/search/foods?q=greek+yogurt&verified_only=true" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Search accepts a multi-word query, brand and category filters, and verified_only when you would rather miss a food than show an unverified one. Suggest (GET /api/v1/search/suggest?q=) is the short payload for typeahead. Food details (GET /api/v1/foods/{id}) is the full per-100g record once the user picks a row. Barcode is GET /api/v1/search/barcode/{upc}.

Macros are per 100 grams: calories, protein, carbohydrate, fat. Micronutrients appear when we have them. Scale the portion in your app. There is no endpoint that accepts "a bowl of yogurt with honey" and returns a parsed meal. That is a different product, covered on Nutritionix API pricing.

Free access, and what it is not

From pricing on 1 October 2026:

• Free: 1,000 calls a month, no card, 10 requests a minute, 20 foods per search, non-commercial.
• Basic: $15, 20,000 calls, 30 a minute, 50 foods, still non-commercial.
• Core: $50, 150,000 calls, 50 a minute.
• Plus: $150, 1,000,000 calls, 200 a minute, the commercial plan. Send X-API-Usage-Type: commercial.

USDA FoodData Central is the free government database if your foods are generic US reference items and you will build search yourself. It is not this API. The USDA guide is the right page when the question is the demo key and nutrient IDs.

Open Food Facts is the open barcode set. We already use it as a fallback when a code is not in our catalog, and we return it in the same JSON shape. Using us does not replace their project. It avoids maintaining two parsers. The food database API product page is the endpoint map. This article is the contract: query, don't export.

A monthly quota of 402 means the plan is used up. A 429 means you went too fast this minute. They are different failures. Caching by food id fixes the second one and most of the first.