Ainonymity Calorie Counter · The method

What five national authorities publish about macros.

Published 26 September 2026

Most of the internet quotes one country’s numbers. Here are the five the app carries, side by side, with what each one actually publishes and where to read it.

Percent of energy

These are shares of the energy carbohydrate, fat and protein supply — not shares of the grams on your plate. Ranges are inclusive at both ends.

The columns are not identical, and that is normal. Each of these is a set of reference values a body publishes for its own population — drawn up at different times, from different starting evidence, and revisited on their own schedules. They are answers to the same question asked in five places, not five sides of an argument.

It still matters in a practical way, because the figure you get measured against is whichever one you follow. A diet at 12% protein sits comfortably inside the North American range, at the very bottom of the Australian one, and if you follow EFSA there is no range to sit inside at all. The Nordic fat ceiling is 40% where everyone else publishes 35% — a range that council builds up from its recommendations for the individual fatty acids rather than setting directly.

Canada and the United States match exactly, and that is deliberate rather than a coincidence: “Canada does not set its own ranges. It adopts the joint US–Canada Dietary Reference Intakes, so these figures match the United States exactly.”

Protein, per kilogram of body weight

A different question from the percentages, and the two can disagree without either being wrong. Percentages tell you what share of your energy a macro supplied; grams per kilogram tell you whether you ate enough protein for your body.

Two things in that table are easy to miss. Australia and New Zealand publish the only figure that differs by sex — everywhere else, one number covers both. And where a body does add an age step, they disagree about when: the Nordic recommendations step up at 65, the Australian at 71, and the North American DRI adds no step at all, holding the elderly figure at the same 0.80 as young adults.

Nobody publishes an upper limit for protein

This one surprises people, and it takes one distinction to square with the table further up. Those percentages are distribution ranges — where a macro’s share of your energy sits next to the other two. A Tolerable Upper Intake Level is a different instrument: a ceiling on intake itself rather than on its share. That is the one nobody sets for protein.

The neatest proof is that a single document does both. The 2005 US reference intakes publish the 10–35% protein share in the table above and decline to set an upper level for protein or for any individual amino acid. A published top and an absent ceiling are not the same claim, and that document makes both at once.

So when the app shows a protein figure above the range its sources cover, it says exactly that and no more: “No authority publishes an upper limit for protein, so above 2 g/kg there is nothing to compare your figure against.” It does not say you have had too much, because no published source would support it.

Both are in the sources at the foot of this page:

• EFSA, Dietary Reference Values for protein, 2012 — states that the available data are not sufficient to establish a Tolerable Upper Intake Level.
• Institute of Medicine, Dietary Reference Intakes for Macronutrients, 2005 — sets none for protein or for the individual amino acids. The same document as the 0.80 g/kg protein figure.

Some of these are recommendations. Others are research

Beyond the national figures, the app shows a handful of situational references. Some are what a health body recommends, others what a study measured — not a target anyone published. The source under each one tells them apart.

• Training regularly — 1.2–2.0 g/kg. A joint position stand from the American College of Sports Medicine, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and Dietitians of Canada (2016). This one is a recommendation.
• Losing weight — 1.07–1.60 g/kg. A study, not a recommendation: the range of intakes across the higher-protein arms of 24 trials, which kept more fat-free mass during energy restriction than the lower-protein arms (Wycherley et al., 2012).
• Resistance training, strength — 1.5 g/kg. A study: the point where extra protein stopped buying extra strength across 82 trials, and only where resistance training was present (Tagawa et al., 2022).
• Resistance training, muscle mass — 1.62 g/kg. A study: a break point across 49 trials, above which supplementation added no further gain (Morton et al., 2018).

Where all of this comes from

Every source below is in the app too, on the same screen as the figure it supports.

• NIH — Dietary Reference Intakes — the US ranges, the 0.80 g/kg protein figure, and the absence of any upper limit for protein.
• Health Canada — Reference Values for Macronutrients — the reference values Canada and the United States publish jointly.
• EFSA — Dietary Reference Values — the EU ranges and the 0.83 g/kg protein figure.
• Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2023 — the Nordic and Baltic ranges.
• NHMRC — Macronutrient balance and Protein — the Australian and New Zealand figures.
• EFSA — Dietary Reference Values for protein, 2012 — the opinion behind the 0.83 g/kg figure above, and the one that states no upper limit can be set.
• ACSM / AND / DC, 2016 · Wycherley, 2012 · Tagawa, 2022 · Morton, 2018 — the situational figures above.

The app lets you pick which of these bodies colours your figures, and shows all five either way — have a look at Ainonymity Calorie Counter, or read how a daily calorie target is calculated.