Nutrition Analysis and Natural Language Processing Documentation

Recipe Analysis

This API covers all key use cases related to recipe and food text natural language processing and nutrition analysis. The API employs NLP (Natural Language Processing) which allows for extraction of food entities from unstructured text.

Covered Use Cases

  • Full analysis of food recipes in real time – entity extraction, measure and quantity extraction with computation of the aplicable nutrition for the recipe and applicable health and diet labels. Finally it adjusts quantity for certain ingredients to account for the cooking pocess. For example it calculates oil absorption for fried recipes, excludes solids from stock and broth recipes, calculates marinate absorption for marinates and much more.
  • Extraction of food entities with mesures and quantities from unstructured text
  • Usage in chat bots transcribing natural speach to text.

Full Recipe Analysis

Path: https://api.edamam.com/api/nutrition-details

Returns nutritional information based on a POST request of the recipe content

The following parameters are part of the POST request URL:

Parameter Required Type Description
app_id yes String Your 3scale application ID
app_key yes String Your 3scale application key
force no Forces the re-evaluation of the recipe. The value, if any, is ignored.

Recipe Analysis Request

You will use a POST request to submit the recipe content—more specifically the recipe title and ingredient list.

The response the API will return will contain nutritional analysis for the recipe based on the information provided.

The contents of the request must be a JSON object with the following format:

Name Required Description
title yes common name of the recipe
ingr yes ingredients (array of strings)
url no url of the recipe’s location
summary no a short description of the recipe
yield no number of servings*
ttime no total time for preparation
img no image link (absolute)
prep no preparation instructions (free text)
cuisine no type of cuisine
mealtype no type of meal
dishtype no type of dish

*While yeld is not a required input if it is present it should make sense from a consumer perspective. Too high or too low weight per serving will affect the nutrition per serving and the recipe will not pass our automated quality check. If this happens the API will return a 555 error.
If not yield is specified Edamam will calculate the expected yield of the recipe.

The request must contain the header

Content-Type: application/json

New recipes, resubmission and licensing count

Once you submit a recipe via the API you start paying Edamam a monthly licensing fee for each new analyzed recipe. Sometimes however, you may need to refresh the nutrition data for an already submitted recipe, in case you have lost the nutrition data for example. Submitting a recipe directly will count as analyzing a new recipe and you will be charged again licensing fee for the nutrition information. To avoid that we’ve implemented a system based on HTTP’s Etag mechanism.

First, each successfully processed recipe will also return a tag in the ETag response header. This value must be preserved together with the recipe. Then, when resubmitting the recipe, you should include the value in the If-None-Match request header.

There three possible outcomes:

  1. You are already using the most up to date version of the Edamam data. That is, you already have the newest version of the nutritional info. In this case, the system will return HTTP status code 304 – Not Modified. Note, that you can force the reevaluation in this case (for example if you lost your data) by passing the force parameter. Edamam will know that you are already paying license for the nutrition information for this recipe and you will not be charged twice.
  2. We have updated our database, the recipe is processed again. In this case you’ll receive the possibly updated nutrition data as well as the updated ETag header. You should store that new value and use it for further resubmissions.
  3. The recipe you submitted has been changed by you. As the ETag hash contains a “signature” for the recipe content the system will respond with HTTP status code 409 – Conflict. In case you have used the wrong ETag you can use correct the code, or if the recipe has changed you can resubmit the recipe as a new one (that is, without sending the If-None-Match header).

Licensing count example. You have analyzed 100 recipes the first month, 50 the second month and 1 the third month. The first month you will pay licensing fee for the nutrition of 100 recipes, the second month for 150 and the third for 151. If you don’t analyze any more recipes after the third month you will pay licensing fee for the nutrition for the total of 151 recipes every month thereafter.

Example POST request

Here is an example using curl:

This will send the recipe.json file for processing.

Here is the contents of the recipe.json file:

Response

HTTP Status code Content-Type Type Description
200 OK application/json Recipe Recipe object containing number of servings (yield), total calories for the recipe (calories), nutrient content by nutrient type (totalNutrients, totalDaily), diet and health classification (dietLabels, healthLabels)
404 Not Found text/html HTML The specified URL was not found or couldn’t be retrieved
422 Uprocessable Entity text/html HTML Couldn’t parse the recipe or extract the nutritional info
555 text/html HTML Recipe with insufficient quality to process correctly

Example response

Here you can download a sample of the response with ingredient level nutrition data

Recipe

Note: Only a subset of the fields may be present, depending on the API plan through which the recipe data is obtained. Refer to the specific plan description for details.

field type description
uri string Ontology identifier
yield integer Number of servings
calories float Total energy, kcal
totalNutrients NutrientInfo[*] Total nutrients
totalDaily NutrientInfo[*] % daily value
dietLabels enum[] Diet labels: “balanced”, “high-protein”, “high-fiber”, “low-fat”, “low-carb”, “low-sodium”
healthLabels enum[] Health labels: “vegan”, “vegetarian”, “dairy-free”, “low-sugar”, “low-fat-abs”, “sugar-conscious”, “fat free”, “gluten free”, “wheat free”

For ‘Nutritional Label Definitions’ consult the table at the bottom of this document

NutrientInfo

field type description
uri string Ontology identifier
label string Display label
quantity float Quantity of specified units
unit string Units

Ingredient

Field Type Description
foodId string Food identifier
quantity float Quantity of specified measure
measure Measure Measure
weight float Total weight, g
food Food Food

Food Text Analysis

Path: https://api.edamam.com/api/nutrition-data

Extracts information from a short unstructured food text – usually an ingredient line and returns:
- Structured data for the text – quantity, measure and food, if available
- Diet, health and allergen labels for the text
- With the build in food logging feature it allows for change of context. For example “rice” will normallly be matched to raw rice while with the food logging feature on it will match to ready to eat ‘cooked rice’

Food Text Analysis Request

You will use a GET request to submit the ingredient.

Parameter Required Type Description
app_id yes String Your 3scale application ID
app_key yes String Your 3scale application key (please note app_id/app_key are an ordered pair)
nutrition-type no String When set to nutrition-type=logging it turns on the food logging feature
ingr yes String The ingredient (don’t forget to URL-encode!)

The API return nutritional analysis for the specified food text.

Example GET request

As an example, let’s say we want to extract information from the text ‘one large apple’. You should always include the quantity and the measure if you want to get nutrition for the line. Otherwise you will get only a food match. We then need to URL-encode this string. In this case, this means to just replace the spaces with %20, so it becomes “one%20large%20apple”. Please note, that the quotation marks aren’t part of the string.
Here is an example using curl:

If you use the food logging context feature it will modify the NLP response in the the following way
- You can submit items without quantity. We will try to match them and assign quantity to them based on expected serving size
- Only foods ready for direct consumption will be matched – no raw meats, raw dry goods or vegetables which need cooking for example
- Edamam can handle single items and two part compound items only – i.e. “chicken” or “rice AND chicken”. Make sure the URL is incoded properly

Response

HTTP Status code Content-Type Type Description
200 OK application/json Recipe Recipe object containing number of servings (yield), total calories for the recipe (calories), nutrient content by nutrient type (totalNutrients, totalDaily), diet and health classification (dietLabels, healthLabels)
404 Not Found text/html HTML The specified URL was not found or couldn’t be retrieved
422 Uprocessable Entity text/html HTML Couldn’t parse the recipe or extract the nutritional info
555 text/html HTML Recipe with insufficient quality to process correctly

Example response

  • Always try to include quantity and measure in the reques i.e.submit ‘one large apple’

Unique food text/igredient line, resubmission and licensing count

Once you submit an ingredient line via the API you start paying Edamam a monthly licensing fee for each new analyzed ingredient line. Sometimes however, you may need to refresh the nutrition data for an already submitted ingredient line, in case you have lost the nutrition data for example. Submitting an ingredient line directly will count as analyzing a new ingredient line and you will be charged again licensing fee for the nutrition information. To avoid that we’ve implemented a system based on HTTP’s Etag mechanism.

First, each successfully processed ingredient line will also return a tag in the ETag response header. This value must be preserved together with the ingredient line. Then, when resubmitting the ingredient line, you should include the value in the If-None-Match request header.

There three possible outcomes:

  1. You are already using the most up to date version of the Edamam data. That is, you already have the newest version of the nutritional info. In this case, the system will return HTTP status code 304 – Not Modified. Note, that you can force the reevaluation in this case (for example if you lost your data) by passing the force parameter. Edamam will know that you are already paying license for the nutrition information for this ingredient line and you will not be charged twice.
  2. We have updated our database, the ingredient line is processed again. In this case you’ll receive the possibly updated nutrition data as well as the updated ETag header. You should store that new value and use it for further resubmissions.
  3. The ingredient line you submitted has been change by you. As the ETag hash contains a “signature” for the text content the system will respond with HTTP status code 409 – Conflict. In case you used the wrong ETag you can use correct the code, or if the text/igredient line has changed you can resubmit the ingredient line as new one (that is, without sending the If-None-Match header).

Licensing count example. You have analyzed 1000 ingredient lines the first month, 500 the second month and 10 the third month. The first month you will pay licensing fee for the nutrition of 1000 ingredient line, the second month for 1500 and the third for 1510. If you don’t analyze any more ingredient line after the third month you will pay licensing fee for the nutrition for the total of 1510 ingredient line every month thereafter.

Nutrients Codes and units

NTR Code Name Unit NTR Code Name Unit
CA Calcium mg ENERC_KCAL Energy kcal
CHOCDF Carbs g NIA Niacin (B3) mg
CHOLE Cholesterol mg P Phosphorus mg
FAMS Monounsaturated g PROCNT Protein g
FAPU Polyunsaturated g RIBF Riboflavin (B2) mg
SUGAR Sugars g SUGAR.added Sugars, added g
FAT Fat g FASAT Saturated g
FATRN Trans g TOCPHA Vitamin E mg
FE Iron mg VITA_RAE Vitamin A æg
FIBTG Fiber g VITB12 Vitamin B12 æg
FOLDFE Folate (Equivalent) æg FOLFD Folate (food) æg
K Potassium mg VITC Vitamin C mg
MG Magnesium mg VITD Vitamin D æg
NA Sodium mg VITK1 Vitamin K æg
VITB6A Vitamin B6 mg THIA Thiamin (B1) mg
h1. Nutritional Label Definitions

Nutrition labels are shared by recipes and foods alike. They are assigned by Edamam based on the ingredients contained in the food label for CPG foods and by the basic ingredients of each recipe for recipes.

Type Web Label API Parameter Definition
Diet Balanced balanced Protein/Fat/Carb values in 15/35/50 ratio
Diet High-Fiber high-fiber More than 5g fiber per serving
Diet High-Protein high-protein More than 50% of total calories from proteins
Diet Low-Carb low-carb Less than 20% of total calories from carbs
Diet Low-Fat low-fat Less than 15% of total calories from fat
Diet Low-Sodium low-sodium Less than 140mg Na per serving
Health Alcohol-free alcohol-free No alcohol used or contained
Health Celery-free celery-free does not contain celery or derivatives
Health Crustcean-free crustacean-free does not contain crustaceans (shrimp, lobster etc.) or derivatives
Health Dairy dairy-free No dairy; no lactose
Health Eggs egg-free No eggs or products containing eggs
Health Fish fish-free No fish or fish derivatives
Health FODMAP free fodmap-free Does not contain FODMAP foods
Health Gluten gluten-free No ingredients containing gluten
Health Keto keto-friendly Maximum 7 grams of net carbs per serving
Health Kidney friendly kidney-friendly per serving – phosphorus less than 250 mg AND potassium less than 500 mg AND sodium: less than 500 mg
Health Kosher kosher contains only ingredients allowed by the kosher diet. However it does not guarantee kosher preparation of the ingredients themselves
Health Low potassium low-potassium Less than 150mg per serving
Health Lupine-free lupine-free does not contain lupine or derivatives
Health Mustard-free mustard-free does not contain mustard or derivatives
Health n/a low-fat-abs Less than 3g of fat per serving
Health No oil added No-oil-added No oil added except to what is contained in the basic ingredients
Health No-sugar low-sugar No simple sugars – glucose, dextrose, galactose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, maltose
Health Paleo paleo Excludes what are perceived to be agricultural products; grains, legumes, dairy products, potatoes, refined salt, refined sugar, and processed oils
Health Peanuts peanut-free No peanuts or products containing peanuts
Health Pescatarian pecatarian Does not contain meat or meat based products, can contain dairy and fish
Health Pork-free pork-free does not contain pork or derivatives
Health Red meat-free red-meat-free does not contain beef, lamb, pork, duck, goose, game, horse, and other types of red meat or products containing red meat.
Health Sesame-free sesame-free does not contain sesame seed or derivatives
Health Shellfish shellfish-free No shellfish or shellfish derivatives
Health Soy soy-free No soy or products containing soy
Health Sugar-conscious sugar-conscious Less than 4g of sugar per serving
Health Tree Nuts tree-nut-free No tree nuts or products containing tree nuts
Health Vegan vegan No meat, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs or honey
Health Vegetarian vegetarian No meat, poultry, or fish
Health Wheat-free wheat-free No wheat, can have gluten though

Types

Composite types are described in terms of their JSON representation.

Throughout descriptions, the following notation is used:

  • integer, float, and string stand for the JavaScript primitive types integer, float, and string, respectively
  • enum stands for a string field that only takes on values from a pre-defined range (the range is specified where essential)
  • T[] stands for an array of objects of type T
  • T[*] stands for an object (associative map) whose every field (element) is of type T.