Part of the Loopa iOS app guide.
Adding a food on iPhone happens on two screens. The Add Food hub is where you find the food: search it, scan it, pick it from what you logged before, or type the numbers in. The Add Food amount screen is where you say how much you had, when, and in which meal, and then log it. This page covers every control on both.
General wellness tracking, not medical advice.
Opening the hub
On the Food screen (Health tab › The Log › Food):
- Tap the Add Food tile. The hub opens for the meal selected in the pills.
- Or tap Log on any meal card. The hub opens for that meal.
The title reads Add to and the meal, for example Add to Lunch. Close at the top left takes you back.
The hub
The meal menu
At the top right, the meal's name with a small arrow is a menu: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack, Pre-workout and Post-workout. The current one has a tick. Everything you log from the hub goes into the meal shown there.
The microphone
Next to the meal menu, the microphone fills the search box with what you say, on the phone only. It never logs anything by itself. If it cannot run, a line explains why, as on the Food screen.
Searching
Type in Search for a food. As soon as you type, the tiles and tabs make way for results. Searching starts from two letters, and pressing Search on the keyboard asks every source; see Food search. Each result has a + that logs it straight away (see "The + button" below), and tapping the row itself opens the amount screen.
What the hub's search can say:
- Grey placeholder rows: still searching.
- Offline. Showing foods saved on this phone.
- Nothing saved matches your words yet. Press Search to look further.
- No match for your words, with Estimate it with AI. See Estimate a food with AI.
- Couldn't search. Nothing saved on this phone matches that yet. with Try again.
The four tiles
- Scan barcode closes the hub and opens the scanner, logging into the hub's meal. See Barcode scanning.
- Voice log closes the hub and opens Describe a Meal, where you type or dictate a whole meal. See Describe a meal.
- Meal photo closes the hub and opens the camera. See Meal photo AI.
- Quick add opens the Quick Add sheet (below).
Voice log and Meal photo are part of Loopa Premium. On Loopa Basic they wear a Premium badge, and tapping one opens the Premium offer instead.
The four tabs
Under the tiles, four tabs list foods you can log in one tap. The hub opens on History.
- History, headed Recently logged: up to 30 different foods you logged in the past year, each with its calories and the amount you had. With nothing logged yet it reads Nothing logged yet and Foods you log show up here with the amount you had, ready to log again in one tap.
- My Meals: your saved meals, each with its calories and number of items. Tapping a row or its + logs the whole meal. Empty, it reads No saved meals yet and Save a meal from your log to add it here, all of it at once. See My Meals.
- Batch meals: saved meals that make more than one serving, each showing its calories a serving and how many it makes. Logging one logs one serving. Empty, it reads No batch meals yet and A meal saved with more than one serving is a batch meal. Logging it logs one serving.
- My Foods: up to 50 foods you created yourself, or had estimated by AI and kept. An AI-estimated food carries an Estimated tag. Empty, it reads No foods of your own yet and Foods you create, or estimate and keep, are listed here.
My Meals and Batch meals are part of Loopa Premium. On Loopa Basic those two tabs wear a Premium badge and tapping one opens the offer. History and My Foods are part of every plan.
In History and My Foods, tapping a row opens the amount screen, starting at the amount you had last time (History) or your usual amount (My Foods).
The + button
Every row has a round + that logs the food without opening anything else: a recent food at the amount you had last time, a food of your own at your usual amount or one serving, a saved meal whole. The + turns into a spinner and then a tick, and you see LOGGED with the food's name or the number of items. The other buttons wait until it has finished. If it fails you see COULDN'T LOG THAT. TRY AGAIN. If the food needs Loopa Premium, the offer opens.
When the lists cannot load
A card reads Couldn't load your foods and Search, scan and quick add still work. with a Try again button. You can also pull down to refresh the hub.
Quick Add
For when you already know the numbers, from a restaurant menu or a label, and finding the food would take longer than typing them. Nothing is looked up.
- Name (optional): left blank, the entry is logged as "Quick add".
- Calories (in kcal or kJ, following your units), Protein, Carbs and Fat in grams.
- LOG TO: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or Snack. It starts on the hub's meal.
Log at the top right and the Log to meal button underneath both log it. They stay greyed until Calories is more than zero. If the log fails, a banner shows the reason or Couldn't log that just now. Try again. Cancel closes the sheet without logging. Quick add is part of every plan.
The Add Food amount screen
It opens when you tap a search result (on the Food screen or in the hub), a row in History or My Foods, a scanned product, or a food in Describe a Meal. It is titled Add Food, with Cancel at the top left and Log at the top right. On iPad the choices sit on the left and the ring and the log button on the right.
The header
The food's name and serving, an Estimated tag if its numbers came from AI, and the result of Loopa's one-time check on the food: Checked, Serving may be off or Data flagged. Food data quality explains the check, and what the Double-checking one serving… line means on a food you saved yourself.
How much, when, which meal
- Serving size: when the food offers more than one way to measure it, this is a menu with the household serving (for example "1 cup (240 g)"), grams, and ounces, as far as the food supports them. Switching keeps the same amount of food and converts the number. With only one option it is a plain line.
- Amount (or Number of servings when measuring by the serving): tap it to open the number pad (below). It starts at the amount you usually log for this food if Loopa knows it, otherwise at one serving's weight in your food-weight unit, otherwise at 1 serving.
- This food doesn't list its weight, so it logs by the serving. appears when there is no weight on record, so grams and ounces are not offered.
- Time: a date and time, set to now. You can move it back to log something you ate earlier, but not forward. When the day is not today, the log button reads Log to meal on the day, for example "Log to Lunch on Sat 23 Aug".
- Meal: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack, Pre-workout or Post-workout.
The limits
A red line appears and logging is held when the amount is too much for one entry:
- That's more than 5,000 g in one entry. Log it in parts. (176.4 oz if you measure in ounces). This applies whenever the food's weight is known, whatever unit you typed.
- That's more than 100 servings. Log it in parts. for a food with no weight on record.
- This food doesn't list its weight. Log it by the serving instead. if a weight unit is chosen for a food without one.
An amount of zero, or an empty one, also holds the Log button.
The macro ring
The ring shows the calories for the amount you chose, split by where they come from, with Carbs, Fat and Protein beside it as a percentage and in grams. A food with no macros on record shows a dash. It updates as you change the amount.
Low FODMAP
If you are running a Low FODMAP protocol, a panel rates this food at this amount. It is not shown otherwise. See Checking a meal before you eat.
Share with family?
A switch, with Sends this one food to your family group. They decide whether to log it, and how much. It is off every time the screen opens. Turn it on and the food is logged to your day and offered to your family in one tap; the Food screen then tells you what happened. It appears only when you are in a Loopa Family Group and family meal sharing is on for you, and it is not offered for a scanned product. To share a scanned food, log it, then press and hold the entry and choose Share with family. See Sharing a meal with your family.
Nutrition facts
Tap Nutrition facts to unfold Calories, Protein, Carbohydrate, Fat, Fiber, Sugar and Sodium for the amount you chose. A dash means the source doesn't list it. Inside the fold:
- Full label opens the food's full Nutrition Facts panel. See The nutrition label, and reporting a food.
- Adjust the numbers opens editable Calories, Protein, Carbs and Fat, with Changing the amount resets these. An edited number is logged exactly as shown. Hide the numbers folds them away again.
Logging it
Tap Log to meal at the bottom, or Log at the top. The screen closes and the Food screen shows LOGGED. If it fails, a banner shows the reason or Couldn't add that just now. Try again.
Reporting the food
Report food at the foot of the screen opens Report incorrect data, with What looks wrong? (optional) and An admin will review it and we'll re-check it with AI. Tap Send or Cancel. Once sent the button is replaced by Thanks. Flagged for review. It is not shown for a food that has no record of its own, such as a food Describe a Meal picked out. See Food data quality.
The line Powered by fatsecret Platform API closes the screen.
The number pad
Tapping Amount docks Loopa's own number pad at the bottom of the screen. The amount and its unit are shown above it, with Done to close it.
- Decimal and Fraction switch how you enter the number. The switch is offered for servings and ounces, never for grams.
- In Fraction mode a row of fractions appears: ⅛, ¼, ⅓, ½, ⅔ and ¾. Type a whole number first if you want one, then a fraction, for "1 ½".
- The digits 0 to 9, a decimal point in Decimal mode, and a delete key.
- Up to four whole digits and two decimal places.
The pad opens in the mode the amount was written in: "1 ½ servings" in Fraction, "202 g" in Decimal.
What is part of which plan
Everything on the amount screen, the hub's search, Scan barcode, Quick add, History, My Foods and the + button are part of every plan, including Loopa Basic. Voice log, Meal photo, My Meals, Batch meals, AI estimates and family meal sharing are part of Loopa Premium, which every new account has for its first 14 days. See Your first 14 days.
On Android
The same two screens. Under the amount, Android also says how much that is by weight ("That's 240 g"), and a different day reads Logging to the day**, not today.** Quick add carries the line For when you know the numbers. Nothing is looked up. The report button reads Report this food.
See also
