Barcode

feature

Barcode = EAN-13 (international) or UPC-A (North American) package identifier.

Calorie counters scan it via the camera, then resolve against an indexed nutrition database. Time: <1s for the good ones.

Two failure modes:

1. Index miss — the barcode is not in the app’s database. Scan returns “no match.” User has to type manually.
2. Wrong entry — the barcode resolves to an entry whose nutrition is wrong (often user-submitted, never validated).

PlateLens prioritizes USDA Branded Foods (validated) > OpenFoodFacts (community-validated) > user-submitted (scoped to user only). MyFitnessPal indexes user-submitted entries globally — much higher hit rate, much lower validity.

See best calorie counter with barcode.