Create a Custom Dish from Scratch with a Manual Intake

What You’ll Build

You’ll implement an ingredient-to-intake flow where your app retrieves ingredients from the LogMeal dataset, lets the user select ingredients and quantities, and creates a manual intake without providing a dish id.

This pattern is useful when the meal does not match an existing LogMeal dish, when the user wants to describe a personal recipe, or when a professional needs to record a custom meal precisely from its ingredients.

This workflow creates a one-off food item inside the intake. It does not create a reusable Custom Recipe with its own catalog dish ID, although users can choose to create a Favorite intake for personal future reuse.

Prerequisites

• Plan: Monitor and above (see more info about LogMeal Plans)
• User type: 🔴 APIUser or 🔵 APIUserManager (see more info about User Types)
• A valid target userId
• Valid ingredientId values retrieved from the LogMeal ingredient dataset
• Client library for HTTP (e.g., Python requests, Node axios, Java OkHttp)

How Ingredient-Only Manual Intakes Work

Each item in the dishes array references an existing LogMeal dish through its id.

When you wish to submit an ingredient-only manual intake, you may instead:

1. Omit the dish id.
2. Provide a non-empty ingredients list.
3. Identify each ingredient using a valid ingredientId.
4. Optionally provide ingredientAmount, measureSystem, and measureId.
5. Optionally provide the total item quantity so ingredient weights are scaled proportionally.
6. Optionally provide a root-level intake_name for the complete intake.

The ingredient recipe is used to calculate:

• the total serving size;
• ingredient-derived food groups;
• nutritional information for the intake and each food item;
• image-level and per-item Nutri-Score;
• metric and preferred measures.

Dish-specific fields remain null because no catalog dish was selected.

Sequence Diagram

Main Flow (Ingredients Selection + Manual Intake Creation)

sequenceDiagram
  participant User
  participant App
  participant LogMeal API

  App->>LogMeal API: GET /v2/dataset/ingredients
  LogMeal API-->>App: 200 OK (ingredient IDs, names, measures)
  App-->>User: Show ingredient search and quantity controls
  User->>App: Select ingredients and quantities
  App->>LogMeal API: POST /v2/intake/manualInput/{userId} <br> (dishes without id)
  LogMeal API-->>App: 201 Created (new intake)
  App->>LogMeal API: GET /v2/intake/{imageId}
  LogMeal API-->>App: 200 OK (recipe, serving size, food groups, nutrition, Nutri-Score)
  App-->>User: Custom intake saved ✅

Optional Nutrition Preview

sequenceDiagram
  participant User
  participant App
  participant LogMeal API

  User->>App: Edit ingredients or quantities
  App->>LogMeal API: POST /v2/nutrition/recipe/compute_nutrients
  LogMeal API-->>App: 200 OK (calculated nutritional information)
  App-->>User: Refresh nutrition preview

Implementation Guide

1. Retrieve Available Ingredients

Call GET /dataset/ingredients and let the user search or select ingredients from the returned dataset.

Use the returned ingredient IDs in the ingredientId fields of the manual-intake request.

2. Build the Manual-Intake Request

Do not include an id for an ingredient-only item. Instead, provide its ingredients array:

{
  "intake_name": "Cod with orange",
  "dishes": [
    {
      "ingredients": [
        {
          "ingredientId": 388,
          "ingredientAmount": 100
        },
        {
          "ingredientId": 539,
          "ingredientAmount": 240
        }
      ],
      "quantity": 340
    }
  ],
  "timestamp": "2026/06/18, 07:55:00"
}

Call:

POST /v2/intake/manualInput/{userId}

The intake_name parameter belongs at the root of the request. Do not place it inside an individual object in dishes.

3. Retrieve the Complete Intake

Use the returned intake identifier to call GET /intake/{imageId}.

For the ingredient-only item, expect dish-specific fields to remain null:

{
  "foodName": [null],
  "ids": [null],
  "foodGroup": [
    "fruit",
    "fish"
  ],
  "hasNutritionalInfo": true,
  "image_nutri_score": {
    "nutri_score_category": "A",
    "nutri_score_standardized": 81
  },
  "recipe_per_item": [
    {
      "dish_id": null,
      "name": null,
      "serving_size": 340,
      "foodGroups": [
        {
          "id": 6,
          "name": "fruit"
        },
        {
          "id": 9,
          "name": "fish"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "nutritional_info_per_item": [
    {
      "id": null,
      "hasNutritionalInfo": true,
      "hasNutriScore": true,
      "nutri_score": {
        "nutri_score_category": "A",
        "nutri_score_standardized": 81
      },
      "serving_size": 340
    }
  ]
}

User Interaction Recommendations

• Let users search ingredients by name and store their selected ingredientId values.
• Submit ingredient amounts in grams, even if another preferred display measure is selected.
• Show the running total weight and optionally preview nutritional information before submission.
• Use intake_name to display a meaningful label because the item has no catalog dish name.
• Clearly distinguish one-off ingredient-based items from reusable Custom Recipes.
• Allow users to edit the intake name later through the modify-name endpoint.

Related Endpoints

• GET /dataset/ingredients
• POST /nutrition/recipe/compute_nutrients
• POST /intake/manualInput/{userId}
• GET /intake/{imageId}
• POST /intake/{imageId}/modify_name
• GET /intake/getIntakesList

Remember to check applicable request limitations inside each endpoint.

Common Pitfalls & Tips

• Missing recipe: when id is omitted, provide a non-empty ingredients list.
• Invalid ingredients: use valid ingredientId values returned by the LogMeal ingredient dataset.
• Ingredient amounts: ingredientAmount is expressed in grams.
• Intake name placement: provide intake_name at the root of the request, not inside dishes.
• Null dish fields: ids, dish_id, foodName, and the per-item dish name are null by design.
• One-off item: this flow does not create a reusable catalog dish or Custom Recipe. Although the user might choose to save it as a Favorite intake to reuse later.

Optional Enhancements

• Preview nutrition before submission while the user edits ingredient quantities.
• Create a reusable personal Favorite intake item to simplify repeated entries.
• Create a reusable company-level Custom Recipe when the same custom dish will be used repeatedly.
• Add a custom intake name and allow it to be renamed later.
• Retrieve the saved intake from history and display ingredient-derived food groups, nutrition, and Nutri-Score.

Next Steps

Pick your path based on what you want to build next: