How we develop our recipes
The foodose recipes are written by the foodose editorial team. They are not the work of a chef, a registered dietitian or a clinical team, and nothing on the site says otherwise. What we can promise is that every number on a recipe page can be traced to where it came from, and that each page says plainly what has and has not been checked.
The collection began as a library of 105 development drafts. A draft becomes a published recipe only after the checks below. 5 have passed so far; the rest stay unpublished until they do, and are not counted, listed or indexed in the meantime.
What “published” means here
Before a recipe is published, it has been checked on paper for all of these:
- The ingredient ratios are plausible for the dish, compared with established versions of it.
- Every listed ingredient is used in the method, and every ingredient the method mentions is listed. A script checks this on every build.
- Every ingredient is matched to a USDA FoodData Central record, with the weight used stated, and raw, cooked or drained made explicit.
- The yield is stated as a number of servings, with a description of what one serving is.
- Any step that has to reach a safe temperature says what it is.
- Nutrition is calculated from those records for the whole advertised meal, not just the main ingredient.
- Allergens are identified from the ingredients, and packaged products whose labels vary are flagged.
- Storage and reheating are checked against food-safety guidance, recipe by recipe.
- Substitutions state what changes: texture, allergens, and a calculated nutrition difference wherever one can be calculated.
- What still needs a real kitchen is written down on the page.
What has not happened yet
A paper check cannot tell you whether a dish tastes good, whether the timings hold on your hob, how many pancakes the batter really makes, or what it looks like on the plate. None of the published recipes has yet been cooked in a test kitchen or photographed, and each recipe page says so near the top, with a list of what is outstanding. The pictures you see are typographic panels naming the main ingredients, deliberately, so that nothing looks like evidence of a dish we have not made.
How the nutrition is calculated
Each ingredient’s weight is multiplied by its FoodData Central values per 100 grams, the whole recipe is added up, and the total is divided by the number of servings. The rules:
- The whole meal is counted: bread, rice, sauce, the oil in the pan and the spoonful of yoghurt on top.
- All of the oil is counted as eaten. Some stays in the pan, so the figure errs slightly high.
- Meat, fish and vegetables use raw weights and raw values. Cooking changes weight far more than it changes nutrients.
- Tinned beans and lentils use drained weights.
- Added salt is not included, because it is optional and unmeasured. Sodium from stock, bread, cheese and tinned food is included.
- If any source does not report a nutrient, that nutrient is shown as not calculated for the recipe. It is never counted as zero.
- A few ingredients are used in amounts too small to matter and have no reliable record, such as half a teaspoon of dried thyme. These are listed in the calculation notes as excluded, with the most they could add.
- Per serving, energy is rounded to the nearest 5 kcal, grams to the nearest gram and sodium to the nearest 10 mg.
Every recipe page has a “Show calculation notes” panel listing each ingredient, the weight used, the FoodData Central record it came from and what it contributed. Brands differ from the generic records, so your own ingredients will give a somewhat different answer. This is calculation method 1.0, September 2026.
These figures are nutrition estimates, not nutrition claims. We do not label any recipe “high protein” or “low fat”, because those terms have legal definitions that differ between the UK, the EU and the US, and the numbers are there for you to judge.
Servings and portions
Every recipe starts from a stated number of servings, usually two. The servings control changes how much you make; the portion control changes how big one plate is. A smaller portion is three quarters of a standard one, and it contains less energy and protein as well as less food. It is there for the days a full plate is too much, and it is an option rather than a goal. Cooking times do not scale with the quantities, and the page says so when you change them.
US measures
Quantities are stored in metric. US measures are converted ingredient by ingredient, from each FoodData Central record’s own household portions, because a cup of ricotta and a cup of blueberries weigh very different amounts. Meat, fish and potatoes are given in ounces.
Food safety
Where a step has to reach a safe temperature, the recipe says what it is, rather than relying on a time alone. A food thermometer is the reliable way to know. The endpoints we use:
| Food | Cook to |
|---|---|
| Chicken and turkey, including mince | 74°C / 165°F |
| Fish | 63°C / 145°F, or until opaque and flaking |
| Egg dishes | 71°C / 160°F |
| Whole cuts of pork | 63°C / 145°F, then a three minute rest |
| Leftovers and casseroles, when reheated | 74°C / 165°F |
For storage, US guidance is to refrigerate cooked food within two hours and use most leftovers within three to four days. The Food Standards Agency in the UK advises eating most leftovers within two days, and cooked rice within a day, cooled within an hour and reheated only once. Each recipe gives its own storage guidance rather than one blanket rule, because a cooked fish dish, a yoghurt sauce and a baked pie behave differently.
Allergens
Allergens are identified from each ingredient against the UK’s fourteen regulated allergens, which include mustard and celery as well as the nine the US regulates. Packaged products such as stock, bread and mustard vary by brand, so recipe pages flag them and ask you to check the label. If you have a severe allergy, the label in your hand outranks anything written here.
What these recipes are not
They are meal ideas, not individual nutrition prescriptions, and being on a site about GLP-1 medication does not make any of them right for everyone who takes it. How much you should eat, and what, is a question for the clinician who prescribes for you. The GLP-1 diet guide sets out the wider picture, and the calculator works out numbers for your own body.
Sources
- USDA FoodData Central
- FoodSafety.gov, Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures
- US Food and Drug Administration, Refrigerator and Freezer Storage Chart
- USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, Leftovers and Food Safety
- Food Standards Agency, How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely
- American Society for Nutrition, Nutritional priorities to support GLP-1 therapy for obesity
The American Society for Nutrition’s advisory shaped the collection’s general approach. It is background, not evidence that any recipe here has been clinically tested; none has.