Which is the best calorie counter app?
MyFitnessPal vs Nutracheck. Two of the most popular nutrition tracking apps go head to head in this post.
I've been tracking my calories & macros for years. Over a decade, in fact. As soon as I found out about flexible dieting (or IIFYM, as it was called back then) for weight loss, I jumped headfirst into the most popular calorie counter app at the time- MyFitnessPal. This was even before they sold to Under Armor.
I used MFP as my food diary for a number of years, until I was introduced to Nutracheck by a post from Jamie Alderton. All of a sudden, the 'quirks' of MyFitnessPal that I'd put up with over the years (the basic features that you could only use with premium, or the fact that it was so slow) suddenly became a huge annoyance.
Don't get me wrong, Nutracheck comes with quirks of its own (which I'll explain in this post), but it does have its merits.
I'm going to take you through the things I find the most important to compare the two apps:
- Price
- User interface (UI)
- Database
Price
Winner - Nutracheck
Before I go into the details of pricing, it's worth giving credit where credit's due - MyFitnessPal has a fully functional (if not slightly restricted) free version; and it's fine.
But it's not brilliant. It has less features (it doesn't even have a barcode scanner anymore), it's slow, and it has loads of ads to make up for the lack of revenue from a subscription.
Nutracheck has a free version too, but instead of restricting features, they restrict time. You get 7 days free with all of the features to show you what the paid version can do.
For the purposes of this, we're going to look at the paid for versions of each app and how much they'll set you back.
- MyFitnessPal - $79.99 (£62) per year
- Nutracheck - £35 per year
There are also monthly options:
- MyFitnessPal - $19.99 (£15) per month
- Nutracheck - £5.99 per month
On both counts, Nutracheck is a clear winner.
User interface
Winner - MyFitnessPal
When I first used MyFitnessPal, it was ugly. Since then, it's had a glow up (presumably from all of the revenue of premium subscriptions and ad placements).
But it has always been super simple to use and pretty intuitive. Nutracheck, on the other hand, can take a bit of getting used to. It's important to note at this point that I'm not a UI designer. I'm not even particularly good at anything related to design. However as someone that just wants to input my calorie intake and then track how many calories I'm consuming on a daily basis in the most simple way possible.
Whilst the basic dashboards offered by both apps are really nice, it's the other parts of the interface that separate MyFitnessPal as the winner. The best example of this is how to set custom calories/macros in the app. Super easy on MFP but insanely fiddly on Nutracheck. I actually dread having to update my calories in the app these days.
Food Database
Winner - Nutracheck
This one isn't even close. When it comes to the quality of information in the database, Nutracheck is in a different galaxy to MyFitnessPal. I think when it comes to this, MFP are a victim of their own success. Adoption of the app as the number one calorie and nutrition tracker led to a huge amount of users. Those users were then given unmitigated control of the database, able to add foods and meals at will.
Unfortunately that led to multiple entries of the same foods, many of which were incorrect. There was also a much larger focus on the US so it wasn't uncommon to not be able to find UK foods but to be able to find a variety of different options from the US.
That's where Nutracheck shines. It's primarily a UK food database and you see comparatively very few mistakes when it comes to the foods & nutritional information of those foods.
It's worth noting, though, that both apps also contain the ability to create 'meals' through recipes/ingredients. This is a game changer if, like me, you like to input your week's foods ahead of time.
The wrap up
Look, both MyFitnessPal and Nutracheck are great ways to track your food intake through calorie counting, whether you're after a calorie deficit for weight loss goals or you're wanting to turn into Lord Swoledemort with a calorie surplus.
My only advice would be maybe don't use their recommended calorie intakes and don't bother factoring in calories burned through physical activity or exercise from a fitness tracker like a Fitbit or Apple Watch. You should be able to find a free calorie calculator online (or if you're ok with paying, Carbon is my calculator of choice).
There are pros and cons to both apps, and to be honest, it's all about the one which will help you stick to your calorie target and help you to improve your health and nutrition long term.
