Every food in Loopa carries a source, and the search results show it. A government laboratory analysis and something another member typed in once are both useful, and they are not the same kind of fact, so Loopa says which one you are looking at rather than presenting everything as equally settled.
The sources
- USDA FoodData Central: the U.S. Department of Agriculture's analyses, including its Foundation, SR Legacy, Branded and FNDDS records. Public domain, and the backbone of the generic foods in Loopa.
- Open Food Facts: a contributor-maintained database of packaged products and barcodes, used under the Open Database License.
- fatsecret Platform API: branded, restaurant and menu items. Most chain-restaurant and supermarket products in Loopa come from here.
- Edamam: food, packaged-product and recipe records. Its ingredient listings are what let Loopa read a packet's label when you scan it, and its recipes each link back to the site that published them.
- Loopa's own records: curated entries, foods you have saved, and corrections members have reported and we have reviewed.
Where a screen shows Edamam data it carries the Powered by Edamam credit, which is a condition of using it.
Why more than one
No single database has everything. Government analyses are excellent on plain foods and thin on the branded packet in your cupboard. Barcode databases are the reverse. Restaurant menus live somewhere else again. Loopa searches its own records first, and reaches out to the others when what it holds is thin or nothing on the shelf answers what you typed.
Results from every source are merged into one list and de-duplicated, so you are not choosing between four versions of the same yoghurt.
If a source is unavailable
Your search still returns everything else. A provider being slow or down means fewer results, never an error and never an empty screen.
Serving sizes
Sources state their figures differently: some per serving, some per 100 g. Loopa converts to the serving actually shown before anything reaches your diary, so the number you log is the number for the amount you ate.
Recipes
Recipes link to the site that published them, and you follow that link to cook. Loopa stores the title, the ingredient lines, the nutrition and the link. It does not store or reproduce anybody's method.
Low FODMAP ratings are a separate thing
FODMAP ratings do not come from any of the food databases above. They come from Loopa's own dataset, built from published peer-reviewed measurements, and every rated food records which paper the figure came from. A food nobody has measured is shown as No data rather than given a guess.
If something is wrong
Every food page has a report action. Reported foods are reviewed, and a correction reaches everybody.
See also: Food search, Barcode scanning, Food data quality, Scanning a packet on Low FODMAP
