Available soon on the App Store
Ainonymity Calorie Counter · free for iPhone and iPad
Most meals are one photo.
A calorie counter that works by camera: point it at your plate and the app writes down what you ate. Logging a meal is two taps — open the camera, press the shutter — so most days that’s about ten seconds.
iPhone and iPad · iOS 17 or later
What it costs
Everything we could make free, we made free.
Anything that reads a photograph runs on credits, so we built as many ways around it as we could. Everything below is free, works with no signal, and is a scan you didn’t spend.
A packet with a barcode on it
453,750 products held on your phone. Point the camera and it is recognized — no button to press, no server contacted, and nothing charged.
Something you have eaten before
Most people eat the same forty things. Save one to Favourites, or copy yesterday’s, and logging it again is a single tap — no scan, no typing.
Something you would rather build by hand
Search six national government food composition tables, bundled with the app. Have a look at the list.
The macro breakdown, the targets, and the sources behind them
Your ring, your trends, the macro breakdown for any day or period, the guideline ranges and the research they come from — all of it free, because you cannot judge a number you cannot trace. You pick which national body colours your figures, and the app shows all five either way: see what each one publishes.
And when none of those fit, there is the label scanner. It reads the nutrition panel on a packet, which means it is working from numbers somebody printed rather than estimating from a picture of food — and it works on any labelled product, in any country, with no database to be missing from. It reads a photograph, so it is an AI analysis and costs a credit like any other.
Why we built it this way
The questions we get asked.
Some of these look like weaknesses until you know what the alternative costs you. Here is the reasoning, in full.
Why is your food database smaller than other apps’?
Because every entry in it was analyzed in a laboratory and published by a government agency, and because those tables are free to use — so the cost never reaches you. The very large databases are either licensed products, which somebody has to pay for, or open to public editing, which means an entry can be wrong and nothing on screen tells you.
We would rather hand you thirty thousand foods you can trace than a million you can’t.
Why not license a bigger barcode database?
The commercial ones are a recurring cost, and a recurring cost to us turns into a subscription for you. We use the USDA’s Branded Foods dataset instead: official, free, and small enough to sit on your phone — which is why scanning a packet works with no signal and costs nothing.
So what happens when a barcode isn’t found?
You photograph the label instead. That is an AI analysis and it costs a credit — but a nutrition panel has the numbers already printed on it, so the app is reading what is there rather than estimating a portion from a picture of food. It works on any labelled product in any country, with no database to be missing from.
It is also why we did not pay for a bigger barcode database: the gap it would have closed is already covered, and covered for more products than any list could hold.
Why is the camera the main way in?
Because it is the fastest way to log a meal that isn’t in a packet. Everything else in the app exists to make it cheaper and easier to avoid needing it — not because photographing your food is a compromise.
Why are the guidelines and the sources free?
You cannot judge a number you cannot trace. Every range the app colours names the authority behind it, and you pick whose guidance to follow — the United States, Canada, the EU, the Nordic countries, or Australia and New Zealand. Charging for that would mean charging you to find out where you stand.
Why favourites and copy?
Most people eat the same things most weeks. Saving one and copying it later takes a single tap — no scan, no credit, no typing. It is the biggest single thing you can do to spend less in this app, which is why it is free and why it is two gestures away.
The part you can check
Have a look for yourself.
Anyone can say their app respects you. Everything below is something you can go and verify — from inside the app, or from the source it names. The same goes for the claims we make about the category: see how this calorie counter compares with six others, every cell read off the other app’s own App Store listing, and why calorie apps give different numbers in the first place. Logging in kilojoules? Here is how kJ works in the app.
Your food data comes from national agencies
Ingredient search runs on six government food composition tables — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland and Australia — bundled with the app. These are laboratory-analyzed and published with their methods, and every one is named, versioned and credited. Have a look at the list.
The barcode scanner is free, and it stays on your phone
453,750 packaged foods held on the device. Point the camera at a packet and it is recognized — no button, no credits, and no server contacted. It is the one camera feature that sends nothing at all.
It works on a plane
Searches, scans, charts and reports all run offline. Take a meal photo with no signal and it waits for you — it sends itself when you are back, dated to when you took it, and you are only charged if it actually runs.
The maths shows its working
The calculator shows the BMI, resting rate and maintenance figure behind its suggestion, and names the authority behind every range it colours. Where there is no safe answer it says so instead of rounding to something plausible. Read how a calorie target is calculated.
What else it does
The rest of it.
A report you can hand to your dietitian
Weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly — as a PDF you can email or AirDrop. It shows your figures and where each one came from, so someone qualified can check the working. Free, like everything here that isn’t the camera.
Photograph a meal
Four ways to read a plate — nutrition label, recipe ingredients, simple foods, complex meal. Whatever it costs is on the shutter before you press it.
Scan a barcode
453,750 packaged foods held on your phone. Free, and it never leaves the device — no server is contacted at all.
Build it by hand
Search six government food tables, or type your own figures. Grams or cups — whichever you actually measured in.
See the trend
Trailing 7 days, 4 weeks, 3 months and 12 months — each measured against the target you actually had at the time, not today’s.
Choose whose guidance you follow
Five authorities publish different ranges, each for its own population, so we don’t pick for you. Colour your macros against the United States, Canada, the EU, the Nordic countries, or Australia and New Zealand — or leave them uncoloured.
Log it when you get a minute
Backfill yesterday, move a meal to another day, or copy one you eat often. Miss a day and nothing scolds you for it.
Honest about the limits
What it will not tell you.
Reading a meal from a photograph is an estimate. The accuracy of that reading has not been measured, so the app says so rather than quoting a figure nobody has verified. The field to correct when a portion looks wrong is the amount — in grams, or in a volume unit where the food offers one — and it is one tap.
The calculator suggests a starting point, not a prescription. It never suggests less than 1,200 kcal a day, or 1,500 for men — a safety floor of our own. When a weight-loss deficit would cross it, the app offers the floor with a smaller deficit and says so — as long as that deficit is at least 300 kcal a day, the smallest US guidance names. Below that, it offers no weight-loss target at all. It is not for under-18s, and not for use during pregnancy or breastfeeding.
Not medical advice. See the Terms of Use.