# Eat This Much Partner API vs Edamam

> Eat This Much Partner scores 45.7 (E) to Edamam's 42.2 (E) for cooking recipes. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-this-much-vs-edamam
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-this-much-vs-edamam.md (~4,200 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-03

Eat This Much Partner API scores 45.7 (E) on agent readiness against Edamam's 42.2 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Edamam leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do cooking recipes.

- Eat This Much Partner API: grade E, 45.7/100, rank #1129 of 1349. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/eat-this-much.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/eat-this-much.json
- Edamam: grade E, 42.2/100, rank #1187 of 1349. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/edamam.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/edamam.json
- Best recipe, nutrition and meal planning APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/cooking/index.md
- All 28 cooking comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cooking/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Eat This Much Partner API (E)

Good for: Health, fitness, dietitian and healthcare apps that want generated meal plans and grocery lists under contract.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 75 against 66
- Security & auth, 48 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 58 against 33
- Transparency & trust, 61 against 31

Watch for: No self-serve signup. Partners are onboarded after a contract, the API is in early access and prices are tailored per partner

### Edamam (E)

Good for: Agents that need recipe candidates filtered by diet, allergen and nutrient ranges with nutrition on each, or food and barcode nutrition through the MCP tools.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 30 against 23
- Agent ergonomics, 71 against 62
- Payments & pricing, 25 against 0

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: The API terms of use and privacy policy render by script and could not be read; no status page, security.txt or disclosure policy was found


## Why the edge

### Transparency & trust: Eat This Much Partner API +30

- Eat This Much Partner API (61): Closed service. The website terms name Eat This Much, Inc. under California law but carry no date and do not cover the API, whose terms are the partner contract; the partner page states the standard retention terms (12 of 30). The privacy policy of 3 December 2020 names its processors and US and Canada databases, the partner page gives retention for partner data and a 7-day cache for nutrition data, and the terms say uploaded recipes cannot be removed (15 of 30). Breaking changes are dated and labelled in the changelog but no notice period or policy is stated (8 of 20). Processors named (Google, Amplitude, Meta, Stripe, Bugsnag, Groove, SendGrid, Cloudflare) and data locations stated (12 of 20). Total 47.
- Edamam (31): Closed service whose API terms of use could not be read (the page is a script shell). The plan pages state the restrictions on caching, attribution and automated requests clearly (8 of 30). The privacy policy could not be read either, so no data-handling statement was scored (0 of 30, unchecked). Retired API versions are marked on their docs pages and the recipe docs announce the end of Shopping List V1 on June 30 with no year (6 of 20). No subprocessors or data locations found (0 of 20). 8 + 0 + 6 + 0 = 14.

### Payments & pricing: Edamam +25

- Eat This Much Partner API (0): Read with the hosted rule. No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Pricing is tailored to each partner and not published; the usage schema's price per credit of 0.01 is an example value (0). No free tier or trial for the API; evaluation is by contacting the company (0). Access starts with a contract signed by a person (0). Total 0.
- Edamam (25): No x402, MPP or L402 (0 of 40). Monthly plan prices and call allowances are public for all three APIs, with per-call prices only for Vision ($0.015) and the Site Parser ($0.06 to $0.01), so plan-priced with some per-unit rates (15 of 20). No free tier; 10-day trials on Recipe Search Basic and Plus, a 30-day trial on Food Database Basic, and the pages do not say whether a card is needed (10 of 20). A person signs up in the developer portal and picks a plan in a browser (0 of 20). 0 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 25.

### Maintenance & community: Eat This Much Partner API +25

- Eat This Much Partner API (58): Read as a closed service. Changelog entry 4.2.0 dated 15 October 2026 (30). Four dated entries in the 90 days to 3 November, 5 August, 6 August, 16 September and 15 October 2026 (20). A support address in the OpenAPI contact block and the changelog, no community channel (8 of 15). No official SDK; the docs point to Postman (0). No package to judge (0). Total 58.
- Edamam (33): Read as a closed service. No dated change was found on the API pages, which carry no changelog. The Food MCP page pins mcp-remote 0.14.3, a version npm published on 21 September 2026, so that page was written or changed within the last 90 days but not demonstrably within 30 (20 of 30). No three dated changes in 90 days (0 of 20). A support widget and form, email and phone on Core and above, no public changelog or community channel (5 of 15). No official SDK; the hosted MCP server is the vendor's but is absent from the official registry, which lists only third-party edamam servers (8 of 15). No package to assess (0 of 10). 20 + 0 + 5 + 8 + 0 = 33.

### Security & auth: Eat This Much Partner API +18

- Eat This Much Partner API (48): Per-user API keys, several per user, created and deleted through the API, the raw key shown once, no expiry or scopes; the key endpoints also accept a session cookie (20 of 30). No read-only key; the only destructive call is deleting a key (6 of 20). Responses are the vendor's own recipe and food data, no untrusted content (10 of 15). GET /gapi/usage-history/ gives a paginated request log per key with credits (12 of 15). No security.txt (404), disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found (0 of 20). Total 48.
- Edamam (30): One `app_id` and `app_key` pair per application, documented as query parameters first and HTTP Basic second, with no scopes, expiry or rotation found; the MCP server takes the pair as a Bearer token. Plain keys (20) less 10 for the documented query string (10 of 30). The APIs are read-only for an outside caller, but there is no read-only key mode and nothing to confirm (12 of 20). Recipe titles, ingredient lines and source urls come from the public web, and no guidance on treating them as untrusted was found; the MCP page only says to present results as estimates (5 of 15). Active user tracking counts users per app for billing, but no request log was found (3 of 15). security.txt returns 404 on developer.edamam.com and no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification was found (0 of 20). 10 + 12 + 5 + 3 + 0 = 30.

### Schema & documentation: Eat This Much Partner API +9

- Eat This Much Partner API (75): Public OpenAPI 3.0.3, version 4.2.0, at /g/openapi.yaml with 14 operations and named schemas (25). No llms.txt or Markdown docs; the docs page is the OpenAPI document and a Postman guide (0 of 10). Every operation states its purpose, its credit cost and its concurrency limit, and the week endpoint says when to use render separately; little on when not to use a call (14 of 20). Enums on preset_diet, output, format, generator_focus, num_foods and food_output, but the generate request schemas list no required properties, with the required inputs stated in prose (10 of 15). curl samples on six operations, error responses 400, 401, 404, 429 and 500 with an IssueMap of field messages (12 of 15). The version is in info only, paths carry no version, but the changelog dates each change and labels breaking ones (14 of 15). Total 75.
- Edamam (66): Public OpenAPI 3.0.3 documents for Recipe Search v2 (four operations) and the Food Database, and the Food MCP's two tools take typed arguments (25). No llms.txt (404) and no Markdown docs (0 of 10). Operation and parameter descriptions state purpose, and the by-uri description warns that missing recipes are not flagged, but there is little on when not to use an operation (12 of 20). Enums for type, diet, health, cuisineType, mealType, dishType, imageSize, co2EmissionsClass and 31 field names, required flags, a 1 to 20 bound on uris, and the MCP arguments are required lists and strings (14 of 15). Examples on the docs page, an `Errors` schema of errorCode, message and params, but no example error body and no code list (9 of 15). v2 in the path and retired versions marked, but no changelog and a Shopping List V1 end date with no year (6 of 15). 25 + 0 + 12 + 14 + 9 + 6 = 66.

### Agent ergonomics: Edamam +9

- Eat This Much Partner API (62): food_output simple or expanded, include_groceries on or off, and JSON, HTML or PDF output size responses (20 of 25). Food search has filters and pagination and usage history pages at 100; generation takes exclusions and per-meal settings (16 of 20). IssueMap errors name the field, 429 means a concurrency limit, 404 on food and key ids (14 of 20). No idempotency keys; generation is randomised and charged per call, so a retry costs again (4 of 20). Three required inputs with defaults for the rest, no official SDK (8 of 15). Total 62.
- Edamam (71): `field` selects any of 31 response fields, results a call are capped by plan at 100 or 1,000, and the MCP server lists two compact tools (22 of 25). `_links.next` paging with diet, health, cuisine, dish, meal, time, calorie and about 40 nutrient range filters (20 of 20). An error schema with errorCode, message and params, but the codes are not enumerated (10 of 20). Every recipe operation is a read and safe to repeat; the shopping-list POST aggregates quantities and stores nothing; the MCP tools' annotations were not read (12 of 20). `type` and `q` are the only required search parameters, with no official SDK in any language (7 of 15). 22 + 20 + 10 + 12 + 7 = 71.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Eat This Much Partner API | Edamam | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 23 | 30 | Edamam +7 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 66 | Eat This Much Partner API +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 71 | Edamam +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 48 | 30 | Eat This Much Partner API +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 0 | 25 | Edamam +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 33 | Eat This Much Partner API +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 31 | Eat This Much Partner API +30 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **45.7 · E** | **42.2 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Eat This Much Partner API | Edamam |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Eat This Much, Inc. | Edamam |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://mcp.edamam.com/mcp/food` |
| Transports |  | Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| Price for cooking recipes | not published | $9 per month (plan) |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under a partner contract; the website terms cover the consumer service | none |
| Tools exposed | 0 | 2 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-15 | none |
| Terms last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2020-12-03 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |

## Verdicts

**Eat This Much Partner API.** A public OpenAPI 3.0.3 document with credits and concurrency limits per operation, enum diet presets and a dated changelog describes a meal plan generator an agent can read well. Access needs a partner contract with no self-serve signup, no published price and no status page, and the API is in early access.

**Edamam.** Recipe search with 36 health labels, nutrient range filters and field selection, documented in a public OpenAPI file, with a two-tool hosted MCP server for food nutrition and images. Web recipes carry no instructions, every plan is prepaid with human-only requests and tight caching rules, and the terms, privacy policy and any status page could not be read.

## Before you call either

### Eat This Much Partner API

1. Access needs a contract with Eat This Much first; ask the person to contact support@eatthismuch.com before planning calls
2. Send the key as X-API-Key. Each generate call needs calories, number of meals and preset_diet; keep macro percentages summing to 100 or use gram ranges, not both
3. Stay under 3 concurrent week, 10 day and 20 meal generations per API user, and treat 429 as a concurrency limit to wait out, not a quota
4. Request food_output=simple unless expanded nutrition is needed, and set include_groceries=false when the list is not wanted; each call costs credits
5. Read the changelog before upgrading, since 3.0.0 moved preferred_food_type into meal_settings and 4.0.0 renamed amount to servings

### Edamam

1. Send `app_id` and `app_key` as HTTP Basic or, for the MCP server, as `Authorization: Bearer <app_id>:<app_key>`, rather than in the query string
2. Expect no instructions on web recipes; return the `url` of the source to the person, and ask for the Plus plan's Edamam-owned set when steps are needed
3. Pass `field` to pick the response fields you need and follow `_links.next.href` for the next page; `type=public` is required on every search
4. Keep each call tied to a person's request and cache only the fields the plan allows, since the plan pages forbid automated collection and end access without refund
5. Show the 'Powered by Edamam' attribution with every result, as every plan requires

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Eat This Much Partner API or Edamam?

Eat This Much Partner API scores 45.7 (E) on agent readiness against Edamam's 42.2 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Edamam leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and payments & pricing.

### Do Eat This Much Partner API and Edamam need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Eat This Much Partner API and Edamam without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Eat This Much Partner API. Edamam has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.edamam.com/mcp/food.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-this-much-vs-edamam.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-this-much-vs-edamam.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "eat-this-much", "b": "edamam"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare eat-this-much edamam`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/eat-this-much.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/edamam.json

## Other comparisons with Eat This Much Partner API or Edamam

- [Eat This Much Partner API vs fatsecret Platform API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-this-much-vs-fatsecret.md)
- [Eat This Much Partner API vs Nutritionix API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-this-much-vs-nutritionix.md)
- [Edamam vs Nutritionix API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/edamam-vs-nutritionix.md)
- [Edamam vs fatsecret Platform API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/edamam-vs-fatsecret.md)
- [Edamam vs LogMeal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/edamam-vs-logmeal.md)
- [Edamam vs spoonacular](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/edamam-vs-spoonacular.md)
- [Eat This Much Partner API vs LogMeal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-this-much-vs-logmeal.md)
- [Eat This Much Partner API vs spoonacular](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-this-much-vs-spoonacular.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp
