Best Food Tracking Apps for 2027

Think of a food tracking app as a diary that reads your meals back to you. Keep one for a couple of weeks and it points out things that are hard to notice from day to day: breakfast is short on protein, fiber rarely gets near its target, most of the salt arrives at dinner. For 2027 the diary we would open first is PlateLens, because it is the easiest to keep complete and it captures the most useful detail.

If you’ve never kept one, start with what food tracking involves; if numbers make you uneasy, mindful eating offers another route.

Which kind of food tracker are you?

• Busy, and logging has to take seconds: PlateLens. A picture, a scan or a spoken line is enough.
• Curious about the make-up of your meals: PlateLens again, for its 80-plus nutrient values per food.
• Starting out and a little nervous: Lose It!, with one friendly calorie number.
• Trying to change routines rather than count: Noom’s lessons and coaching.
• Plant-based and keeping an eye on specific nutrients: Cronometer.
• Happier with a structure handed to you: Lifesum.
• Mostly eating out at chains: MyFitnessPal.

Plans and prices below are as each company publishes them, with the date we noted them, and we re-check them monthly.

1. PlateLens: our first choice for 2027

A food diary is only useful when it’s complete, and PlateLens removes most of the reasons to skip an entry. Each meal can go in however suits the moment: photograph the plate and the app proposes every food and portion for you to accept or correct; scan a wrapper; type a couple of words; or simply say what you ate. Dishes you make often and meals you repeat can be stored and logged again in a moment.

The detail behind each entry is the real difference between this and a plain calorie counter: upwards of 80 nutrient values per food, from fiber and sugar to potassium, calcium, iron and magnesium, with net carbs worked out automatically. A week of entries becomes an honest picture of what your meals contain.

It also handles what people often keep track of next to food: a fasting timer, glucose readings beside meals, alcohol, and a 3D Body Scan that estimates waist, hip and chest from a dozen phone pictures. A recipe and meal planner turns your choices into a shopping list, starting goals come from your profile, and adaptive TDEE keeps the calorie goal realistic as your weight shifts. You can open it on an iPhone, an Android phone, an Apple Watch or any browser, and download the whole diary as JSON.

Cost: nothing, for as long as you like, with no card requested. Barcode and text entries are unlimited and three photo meals a day are included. Premium is $34.99 a year or $9.99 a month (list price on 10 August 2026) and removes the caps on photos and coach questions.

2. Lose It!: the easiest first diary

Lose It! is the softest place to begin: a cheerful design, one calorie budget, Snap It photo recognition, a scanner for packets and streaks that reward turning up. It stores fewer nutrients per food than PlateLens and keeps many reports in Premium, which its App Store listing puts at $39.99 a year.

3. Noom: when routines are the goal

Noom approaches food through psychology. You pay for a program of short lessons, a traffic-light scheme that labels foods by calorie density, and a coach; logging meals is one part of it. It fits people whose real target is routine rather than nutrient totals. What you pay varies with how long a plan you sign up for.

4. Cronometer: the deepest nutrient reports

Cronometer is the diary for detail lovers. By its makers’ count, a single entry can show as many as 95 nutrients and compounds, drawn from what they describe as lab-analysed sources, so it is a favourite on vegan diets and with people whose clinician wants something specific watched. The free version reads barcodes between adverts. Upgrading to Gold ($59.99 yearly or $10.99 monthly, checked 20 September 2026) unlocks photo and voice logging plus an assistant named Crono Coach. Most meals still begin with a search.

5. Lifesum: when you want a structure

Lifesum is for people who like being handed a framework. Pick a style (keto, Mediterranean or a high-protein plan, among others) and its diary, scanner and recipes organise themselves around it, in a bright, readable layout. Most of those plans require Premium, which is priced by country.

6. MyFitnessPal: the widest coverage

Users have filled MyFitnessPal’s catalogue with an enormous range of chain dishes and local brands, which is handy if you rarely cook. Because entries are user-submitted, you will often find one meal listed several times with conflicting values. Scanning packaging, Meal Scan and voice logging all require Premium ($79.99 a year or $19.99 a month).

Starting a food diary that lasts

• Record for one week without judging. Overhauling everything on day one turns logging into an exam.
• Include drinks. Juice, lattes and alcohol can carry a surprising share of the day.
• Hunt for one pattern at a time, such as low fiber, a small breakfast or a long gap that ends in a big snack. Our explainers on dietary fiber and added sugar help you read what you find.
• Make one change, then keep logging to see whether it stuck.

Our recommendation

For most people, PlateLens is the food tracking app to start 2027 with: quick to fill in, rich in nutrition detail and free for as long as you like. Choose Lose It! for the gentlest start, Noom for coaching on routines, Cronometer for micronutrient depth, Lifesum for structure and MyFitnessPal if chains supply most of your meals.

Keep it kind. If logging starts to make meals feel tense, stop for a while and ask a registered dietitian or your doctor for help.