How to Search Foods Online

This article explains how to search for foods in the ProTracker Plus online database, and how to copy results to your "My Foods" library for quicker tracking or to make further edits/customizations to it (e.g. you want to create your own variation of the food).

Searching for Foods in our Online Database

ProTracker Plus allows you to create your own curated library of foods, meals and recipes. However, sometimes you might want to find a food online to quickly track it to your diary, or to copy it to your My Foods library and make further edits to it.

To find foods in our online database:

1. Go to the Diary tab
2. Tap “Add Food” in a meal period to bring up the food search interface
3. Tap the search bar
4. Input a search term (notice as you type, the list is live updated with results from your own food lists — including recipes and meals based on their ingredients!)
5. To trigger the online search, tap the "Search" button on the keyboard (alternatively, tap the "Search online for:" option that appears in the list)

How do I understand the search results?

The search results from our online database are split into two sections:

Common Foods: 

Our registered dietitian team started with the USDA database and supercharged it! In addition to USDA foods, our team has curated thousands of common international foods and recipes

Branded Foods: 

We have the largest branded food database in existence with over 777K grocery foods with barcodes and 181K restaurant foods.

Can I save search results to the "My Foods" list?

Yes. In some cases you may want to copy results from an online food search to your "My Foods" list. This is useful if you want to avoid having to search for it every time you want to track it, or if you're looking to make further edits/customizations to it (e.g. you want to create your own variation of the food).

You can do this after you've triggered an online search:

1. Tap a food from the search results
2. Tap "Copy to My Foods"
3. The food is now in your "My Foods" list and you can make further edits to it there

How do I make adjustments to foods I find through the online database?

The foods in our online database have been reviewed for accuracy and completeness. However, sometimes you may need to make adjustments for your own use case (e.g. you want to modify the base serving size, you want to add food tags, you want to change the name, etc). If you want to edit a food from our online database for your own purposes, you can just copy it to your "My Foods" list and make further edits to it there.