# fatsecret Platform API (slim)

> The fatsecret Platform API is a REST API over fatsecret's verified food and nutrition database, with food search, barcode lookup, recipes, image recognition and natural-language food logging, plus per-user food, exercise and weight diaries, under OAuth 2.0 and OAuth 1.0.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fatsecret.md (~8,100 tokens) · this version ~1,880 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fatsecret.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fatsecret
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-04 · pricing https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fatsecret#pricing · reviews https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fatsecret#reviews
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

**E · 42/100 · rank #1193 of 1349 · #6 in Cooking, recipes & meal planning · not agent-ready · confidence medium**


Assessment: OAuth 2.0 client credentials with feature scopes, IP-restricted tokens, a free 5,000-call day with no card, and per-serving nutrients with allergen flags on branded and generic foods. The newest search and image methods need the sales-priced Premier edition, there is no status page, OpenAPI file or official SDK, and the privacy policy and blog could not be read.

## Facts

- Kind: HTTP API · vendor: fatsecret · category: Cooking, recipes & meal planning · legal entity: not named · provenance 49/100
- Auth: OAuth · pricing: Freemium · x402: no · licence: unknown
- Probe metrics: not measured yet (probes haven't run)
- Surface listed: The Platform API at platform.fatsecret.com/rest, read from the guides, editions, authentication, OAuth 2.0, OAuth 1.0, error codes, libraries, localisation, foods.search v5, attribution, about and terms pages on platform.fatsecret.com and the GitHub API on 3 November 2026. No account was made and no call was sent
- Methods: Foods (search v1 and v5, get by id v5, autocomplete v2, barcode v2, image recognition v2, natural language v1, feedback v1, brands, categories and sub-categories v2, create v2), recipes (search v3, get v2, types v2), and profile methods for foods, recipes, saved meals, authentication, food diary, exercise diary and weight diary
- Editions: Basic (free, self sign-up, 5,000 calls a day, US data, English, attribution required), Premier Free (free with verification for start-ups under US$1M revenue and raised, non-profits and students, no daily cap), Premier (on request, 62 regional datasets, 26 languages, white label, month-by-month SLA with service credits, email, phone, Slack and video support)
- Add-ons: Image recognition and natural language processing, billed monthly by usage in tiers of 25,000 inputs, with a 50 per cent discount on Premier Free. The platform page says a 14-day trial of image recognition can be started from the dashboard
- Rate limits: 5,000 calls a day on Basic per the terms and editions page; Premier unlimited without throttling per the platform page. Error code 11 for the application limit and 12 for a user's actions. No per-second figure, 429 or Retry-After documented
- Localisation: 212 region codes and 26 language codes; `language` is ignored unless `region` is set; a premium feature for select accounts
- Data licence: Content not marked storable indefinitely must be removed or re-requested within 24 hours; foods.search v5 marks only food_id and serving_id as storable. Attribution with the web badge or snippet wherever content is shown, in app store listings and on the app's website, except on white-label Premier. fatsecret may crawl and monitor applications
- SDKs: None official. An official Postman collection and walkthrough (fatsecret-group/postman-fatsecret-apis, last push 1 July 2025). Community libraries pyfatsecret (Python), fatsecret-laravel (PHP) and FatSecretSwift (Swift, proof of concept)
- Legal entity: Not established. The terms name 'Fatsecret.com (fatsecret)' under the law of Victoria, Australia; the about page says fatsecret was founded in 2006 and names its CEO, CTO and VP Business Development; www.fatsecret.com/about-us answered 403

- Scores: Reliability 35, Performance pending, Schema & documentation 52, Agent ergonomics 64, Security & auth 51, Payments & pricing 25, Task success pending, Maintenance & community 13, Transparency & trust 34 · total over the 7 assessed categories
- Why: Reliability, Read with the hosted lines. · Schema & documentation, No OpenAPI or similar document was found; the official Postman collection is the only machine-readable contract (8 of 25). · Agent ergonomics, `max_results` up to 50 (default 20), `format=json`, and `include_*` switches add sub-categories, images and attributes only when asked, but… · Security & auth, OAuth 2.0 client credentials with seven scopes gating capabilities (`basic`, `premier`, `barcode`, `localization`, `nlp`… · Payments & pricing, No x402, MPP or L402 (0 of 40). · Maintenance & community, Read as a closed service. · Transparency & trust, Closed service with terms that are clear on caching, attribution, rate limits and termination, but undated, naming the provider only as Fats…
- Sources: 20, open questions: 7, both in the full twin
- Capabilities: cooking.nutrition, cooking.recipes, cooking.food-recognition, cooking.grocery
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/fatsecret.json
- Verify (for the vendor): the badge `https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/fatsecret.svg` or a link to https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fatsecret from a page on fatsecret.com or one of its subdomains, then `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/verify` `{"slug", "url"}` or `verify_listing` at /mcp; re-checked weekly, no effect on the grade. Snippets in the full twin.
- Support: https://platform.fatsecret.com/contact; https://platform.fatsecret.com/docs/guides; more in the full twin

## Before you call it

1. Request a token with `grant_type=client_credentials` and only the scopes the task needs; a token request from an IP not registered on the key fails, so run from a fixed address
2. Use `foods.search` v1 on Basic, since v5, autocomplete, barcode and image methods answer with a scope error without Premier
3. Pass `format=json` and keep `max_results` at or below 50 with a zero-based `page_number`; treat error code 11 or 12 in the body as the rate limit, since no 429 is documented
4. Store only food_id and serving_id between sessions and re-request other values within 24 hours, as the terms require
5. Use a delegated profile token for diary writes and keep the profile's oauth_token and oauth_secret, since fatsecret does not return them again

## Connect

```bash
curl -u "$FATSECRET_CLIENT_ID:$FATSECRET_CLIENT_SECRET" -d "grant_type=client_credentials&scope=basic" https://oauth.fatsecret.com/connect/token
```
Full config and headless snippets are in the full page. Through letme (picks today, calling later): https://letme.dev/fatsecret

## Similar tools

| Tool | Grade | Score | Shared capabilities | Slim |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| LogMeal | D | 49.1 | cooking.food-recognition, cooking.nutrition, cooking.recipes, cooking.grocery | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/logmeal.min.md |
| spoonacular | D | 49 | cooking.recipes, cooking.nutrition, cooking.grocery, cooking.food-recognition | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/spoonacular.min.md |
| Edamam | E | 42.2 | cooking.recipes, cooking.nutrition, cooking.food-recognition, cooking.grocery | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/edamam.min.md |
| Eat This Much Partner API | E | 45.7 | cooking.grocery, cooking.nutrition, cooking.recipes | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/eat-this-much.min.md |
| Nutritionix API | F | 33.6 | cooking.nutrition, cooking.grocery | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nutritionix.min.md |


## Panel reviews (0, desk reviews from public material, no calls made)