Food & calories API

Food & calories

POST /v1/food · $0.01 a call

Send a meal photo. A vision model lists every food and drink, splits mixed dishes into parts, and estimates each weight from the plate and cutlery in frame. Each item is then matched to a USDA FoodData Central entry, and its per-gram values are scaled to the portion.

For calorie trackers, meal loggers, diet coaches.

Request

Send the photo as image (multipart), image_base64 or image_url, as described in the overview. These optional fields go alongside it:

Field	Type	Description
`context`	string, up to 500 characters	What the user tells you about the meal, e.g. "I ate about half" or "cooked in butter". Trusted over the photo.

Photo tips. Shoot from above with the whole plate in frame. A fork, a hand or a standard plate helps judge size.

curl https://ourapi.keronlabs.com/v1/food \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FORKCAST_KEY" \
  -F image=@lunch.jpg \
  -F context="I ate about half"

Response

Field	Description
`summary`	One line for a list view, e.g. "736 kcal across 2 items".
`is_food`	false when the photo has no food or drink; items is then empty.
`items[].name`	What the food is, as the model saw it.
`items[].grams`	Estimated edible weight.
`items[].confidence`	0 to 1, covering both what the food is and how much of it there is.
`items[].nutrition`	calories, protein_g, carbs_g, fat_g, fiber_g for that weight.
`items[].source`	{ type: "usda", fdc_id, description } when matched to FoodData Central, or { type: "estimate" }.
`totals`	Sum of all items.
`follow_up_questions`	Up to three questions whose answers would change the total most. Send the answer back as context.

Example

Output of this API's own code on a sample photo. Values will differ for your photos.

{
  "metadata": {
    "id": "req_9cf4da08fe7f40dab71a",
    "engine": "food",
    "status": "success",
    "cached": false,
    "credits_used": 1,
    "created_at": "2026-10-19T09:30:00.000Z",
    "processing_ms": 3400
  },
  "summary": "775 kcal across 1 item",
  "is_food": true,
  "items": [
    {
      "name": "Margherita pizza, whole",
      "grams": 289,
      "confidence": 0.7,
      "cooking_method": "baked",
      "nutrition": {
        "calories": 775,
        "protein_g": 35,
        "carbs_g": 91.6,
        "fat_g": 29.8,
        "fiber_g": 6.4
      },
      "source": {
        "type": "usda",
        "fdc_id": 2708622,
        "description": "Pizza, extra cheese, thin crust"
      }
    }
  ],
  "totals": {
    "calories": 775,
    "protein_g": 35,
    "carbs_g": 91.6,
    "fat_g": 29.8,
    "fiber_g": 6.4
  },
  "follow_up_questions": [
    "Did you eat the whole pizza or only part of it?"
  ]
}