How to Track What You Eat with Plate
5 min read
Most food tracking dies the same death: searching a database for "chicken thigh, roasted, 140g" four times a day is a part-time job, and by Thursday nobody is doing it. Plate — the fork-and-knife tab in the middle of the bottom bar — takes the opposite approach. You describe what you ate the way you would tell a friend, and the AI does the breakdown.
Everything in Plate is private. It is your food diary, not a social feed — nothing you log is visible to anyone else.
Log a meal in one sentence
Type into the input bar at the bottom: "scrambled eggs and toast", "the leftover pasta from yesterday", or even the entire day in one line — the AI splits it into meals for you. While typing, meal-slot chips let you file it under breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack; leave them alone and the time of day decides.
Before anything is saved, a review sheet shows what was understood — each item with its estimated calories and macros. Adjust or remove anything there. Nothing lands in your day without passing your eyes first.
Or snap it
Tap the clip button to attach a photo. A photo of your plate gets the dish recognized and estimated; a photo of a product’s nutrition label gets the printed values read off directly — the fastest way to log packaged food accurately.
Favorites and repeat pills: the two-tap log
Real eating is repetitive, and Plate leans into that. Star a meal to save it as a favorite, then re-log it any day from the star button — no AI, no wait. Above the day’s list, repeat pills surface the meals you log habitually, so your usual breakfast is one tap.
Targets, trends, and fixing mistakes
Fill the goals questionnaire (the tune icon): height, weight, activity level, and whether you want to lose, maintain, or gain. Plate computes a daily calorie and macro target and shows the day against it. The chart icon opens stats and trends over time.
Every logged row has a menu: edit the text or values, use portion pills to say how much you actually ate, move it to another slot, or recalculate with AI. Forgot to log yesterday? Arrow back to that day and log normally — it lands where you are looking.
- Log at the meal, not at midnight — memory rounds down.
- Star your regulars in the first week; after that most days are two taps.
- Treat values as consistent estimates: the trend across weeks is the signal.
Frequently asked questions
Can anyone see my food diary?
No. Plate is entirely private — nothing you log is visible to other users, full stop.
How accurate are the numbers?
They are AI estimates, and good ones — but estimates. Portion pills and the edit sheet let you correct anything. For tracking against a goal, consistency matters far more than perfection.
Do my cooked recipes connect to Plate?
Yes — when you finish cooking a meal in the app, you can log it to Plate as part of wrapping up the cook.
Get the app
Cooking Together is free on iPhone, iPad, and Android. Import your first recipe in under a minute.