The nutrition label and reporting a food
Every food in Loopa has a full nutrition label behind it, and you can tell us when one is wrong. Both are free.
The label
Tap a food anywhere it appears and you get the standard Nutrition Facts panel: serving size, calories, fats, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate, fiber, sugars, protein and the micronutrients on file.
Change the portion and the whole label rescales. Set 1.5 cups and every number on the panel is for 1.5 cups.
The numbers come from the server, not the app. The same figures reach iOS, Android, the mobile web and the desktop, because all four ask the same endpoint rather than each doing its own arithmetic. A number you see on your phone is the number your laptop shows.
"Is this right?"
Under the label there are two answers.
Yes. Records that this entry looked correct to somebody who ate it. Quiet, one tap, and it is how a food earns confidence over time.
No. Flags the food. You can give a reason, and you can suggest corrections by filling in the numbers you believe are right, from the packet in your hand.
What happens to a report
Three things at once:
- It goes to the community's admins to look at.
- It triggers an immediate automated recheck of that food against its sources.
- Search stops trusting that entry. A flagged food is treated as though Loopa did not have it, so the next search for it goes out to the other food databases looking for a better answer. If one of them has it, that answer replaces the flagged one and the flag clears, for everybody and not just for you.
That last one is why a report is worth making even when you have already worked around it. You are not filing a note; you are sending the search looking.
You can see whether a food you flagged is still under review; the label says so.
The limits, and why
- One open report per person per food. Flagging the same food twice adds nothing and the app says so rather than filing a duplicate.
- Eight reports a day. Past that it asks you to come back tomorrow.
Neither is a judgement about you. A food database is corrected by people who noticed something specific, and an unbounded flag button collects noise instead.
What makes a report useful
- Say which number is wrong, not that the entry is bad.
- Suggest the correction if you have the packet. A correction with figures on it is acted on far faster than a flag.
- Check the serving size first. Most "wrong calories" reports are a per-100g entry read as a per-serving one.
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