nutritionR

A wrapper for the Nutritionix API (https://www.nutritionix.com), allowing nutritional analysis of foods and recipes expressed in natural language.

Requirements

Requires a Nutritionix API key (it’s free!). Go to https://developer.nutritionix.com

Installation / getting started

1. Install the package

devtools::install_github("tylerburleigh/nutritionR")

2. Load the package and set your API keys

library("nutritionR")
Sys.setenv(NUTRITIONIX_APP_ID = "MY_APP_ID")
Sys.setenv(NUTRITIONIX_API_KEY = "MY_API_KEY")

How do I use nutritionR?

This package has two functions:

1. nutritionix_lookup()

nutritionix_lookup() takes a natural language food query as input, it sends this query to the Nutritionix API, and then returns an list object with all sorts of nutrition information.

You can inspect this object. It has all sorts of information like portion size, quantity, weight, brand name (if applicable), and of course nutrition. If you don’t specify a portion size or quantity, it will make its own assumptions. You can see what these assumptions are.

For example, let’s say you wanted to query Nutritionix with “A hamburger with cheese”:

obj <- nutritionix_lookup("A hamburger with cheese")

2. nutrient()

nutrient() takes a nutrition object returned by nutritionix_lookup() and a nutrient as input, and returns the information about that nutrient. Specifically, it returns the name, amount, and unit.

For example, let’s say you wanted to know how many calories were in your query “A hamburger with cheese”.

obj <- nutritionix_lookup("A hamburger with cheese")
nutrient(obj, "calories")

$name
[1] "calories"

$amount
[1] 653.26

$unit
[1] "kcal"

Natural language, what?

The Nutritionix API uses natural language processing to process your queries. It can usually figure out what food items you’re referring to even when you give it a complex input with non-food related details. For example, let’s say you had eggs and toast for breakfast, and a burrito for lunch. You can use this query exactly as it is:

obj <- nutritionix_lookup("I had eggs and toast for breakfast, and a burrito for lunch.")
nutrient(obj, "calories")

$name
[1] "calories"

$amount
[1] 569.1

$unit
[1] "kcal"

Here, nutritionix_lookup() returns a list object with 3 items, and nutrient(obj, "calories") returns the calories for all of the ingredients summed together.

Using nutritionR for recipes

You can use nutritionR to lookup nutrition info for recipes.

For example, this is one of my favorite simple curry recipes:

• 2 cups dry red lentils
• 2 tsps turmeric
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsps cumin seeds
• 1 small onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 fresh green chiles
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger
• 2 medium tomatoes

If I want to know the nutrition of this recipe, I can take these ingredients and enter them as a query to the nutritionix_lookup() function, as a comma-separated string like this:

obj <- nutritionix_lookup("2 cups red lentils, 
                           2 tsps turmeric, 
                           4 tbsp olive oil, 
                           2 tsps cumin seeds, 
                           1 small onion, 
                           2 cloves garlic, 
                           2 fresh green chiles, 
                           1 tsp garam masala, 
                           1 tsp ground coriander, 
                           1 tbsp fresh ginger, 
                           2 medium tomatoes")
nutrient(obj, "calories")

$name
[1] "calories"

$amount
[1] 2022.532

$unit
[1] "kcal"

Let’s say I want to know the calories per serving. If I know how many servings the recipe makes, then I could divide the amount returned by nutrient() by the number of servings.

obj <- nutritionix_lookup("2 cups dry red lentils, 
                           2 tsps turmeric, 
                           4 tbsp olive oil, 
                           2 tsps cumin seeds, 
                           1 small onion, 
                           2 cloves garlic, 
                           2 fresh green chiles, 
                           1 tsp garam masala, 
                           1 tsp ground coriander, 
                           1 tbsp fresh ginger, 
                           2 medium tomatoes")
calories <- nutrient(obj, "calories")
calories$amount / 6

[1] 337.0887

Great, so what nutrients can I lookup?

Currently, 68 nutrients are supported.
This includes macronutrients like fat, protein, carbs, calories, and also micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals.

The full list of nutrients is as follows:

• calcium
• carbohydrate
• cholesterol
• calories
• saturated fat
• fat
• trans fat
• iron
• fiber
• potassium
• sodium
• protein
• sugar
• vitamin d
• alanine
• alcohol
• arginine
• ash
• aspartic acid
• caffeine
• carotene alpha
• carotene beta
• choline
• cryptoxanthin
• copper
• cystine
• monosaturated fat
• polysaturated fat
• folate
• folic acid
• folate
• glutamic acid
• glycine
• histidine
• isoleucine
• leucine
• lutein and zeaxanthin
• lycopene
• lysine
• methionine
• magnesium
• manganese
• niacin
• phosphorus
• pantothenic acid
• phenylalanine
• proline
• retinol
• riboflavin
• selenium
• serine
• theobromine
• thiamin
• threonin
• vitamin e
• tryptophan
• tyrosine
• valine
• vitamin a
• vitamin b12
• vitamin b-6
• vitamin c
• vitamin d2 and d3
• vitamin k
• water
• zinc

This list can also be accessed with data(nutrients)

Package maintainer / author

nutritionR is written and maintained by Tyler Burleigh.