CalorieDetails is a nutrition database, food tracker, and educational resource for people who want clear, accurate information about what they eat. The site combines data from the USDA Food Central Database, restaurant menu nutrition, calorie and macro calculators, and original written content covering nutrition topics in depth.
This page exists because if you're using a nutrition site to make decisions about your health, you deserve to know who's behind it and how the information gets to you.
👋 Who built this
For 15 of those years, Dominic worked at SparkPeople, one of the early and largest consumer nutrition tracking platforms. SparkPeople served millions of users tracking their food, planning meals, and working toward health goals. Dominic contributed broadly across the platform — the food database, the tracking tools, the calculators, and the systems that turned raw nutrition data into something people could actually use.
Working on a consumer nutrition product at that scale meant solving the same problems CalorieDetails solves today: how to keep food data accurate as databases grow, how to handle the messiness of branded foods versus generic entries, and how to present nutritional information in a way that's actually useful for everyday decisions.
After SparkPeople, Dominic spent three years working in a clinical laboratory environment — toxicology, microbiology, and pharmacogenetics — which deepened his understanding of how biological and chemical data is generated, validated, and interpreted. Working with lab data alongside healthcare professionals reinforced something he'd already learned in 15 years of nutrition tech: data accuracy isn't just a technical problem, it's a trust problem.
CalorieDetails grew out of the gaps Dominic kept seeing in existing food tracking tools — gaps in data freshness, gaps in how branded products were handled, gaps in the depth of information available for individual foods. The site is an attempt to do that part right, with the data quality and presentation that comes from spending nearly two decades thinking about exactly these problems.
📊 Where the nutrition data comes from
The nutrition information on CalorieDetails comes from a few authoritative sources:
We make no claim to original laboratory analysis of foods. We aggregate, organize, and present data from authoritative sources, with attention to accuracy and freshness.
🤖 About AI-generated content
CalorieDetails uses AI to generate some of the food-specific Q&A content displayed on individual food pages. These short answers cover topics like "Is this food good for weight loss?" or "What should I watch out for?" and are generated based on the actual nutritional data for each food.
We're transparent about this for two reasons. First, you should know how content was created when you're using it to inform decisions. Second, AI-generated nutrition summaries are a useful supplement, but they are not a substitute for professional dietary or medical advice. Use them for general orientation; consult a qualified professional for personal guidance.
Long-form content — blog posts, comparison guides, and educational articles — is written and edited by Dominic.
📝 Editorial approach
Where the site makes claims about nutrition, those claims are grounded in either:
- The actual nutritional data from authoritative databases (e.g., "this food is high in protein" means it actually contains protein in amounts that meet recognized "high protein" definitions)
- Established nutritional science as represented in peer-reviewed literature and professional guidelines
- Standard calculations using recognized equations
CalorieDetails is not a medical site and does not provide medical advice. We provide nutritional data and educational content to help you make informed decisions, but personal dietary recommendations should come from a qualified professional who knows your specific situation.
✉️ Contact
For questions, corrections, partnership inquiries, or anything else:
[email protected]We read everything that comes in, especially data accuracy reports. If you spot a number that looks wrong, please let us know.
🌱 A note on this site's evolution
CalorieDetails is actively maintained and improved. The food database is regularly updated as USDA releases new data. The site's content, calculators, and tools are continuously refined based on what works for users and what doesn't. If you visit a year from now, expect things to be better than they are today.