How Radish calculates the macros of a homemade recipe
In brief
A sourced recipe in the Radish library is built ingredient by ingredient, from an official composition database (CIQUAL first), taking cooking into account, with a final consistency check between calories and the declared protein, carbs and fat. Not every library recipe is built this way: an older part of the library has values estimated from its ingredients, without this source detail. Your personal recipes add up their ingredients and divide the total by the number of servings, without a cooking yield.
Counting the calories of a homemade dish is harder than counting a packaged product's: there's no label. The dish has to be rebuilt from its ingredients. Here, step by step, is the method followed for the sourced recipes in Radish's library. When you create your own recipe in the app, only part of it applies: adding up the ingredients and dividing by servings.
Step 1 — weigh each ingredient, raw or cooked
Every ingredient in a sourced recipe is first linked to a precise entry in an official nutritional composition database — not to a generic name. "Pork, raw shoulder" and "pork, cooked shoulder" aren't the same entry: water content, and so calories per 100 g, differ. The choice between the two depends on what's known: if the recipe specifies an already-cooked weight (for a starch like rice, for example), the "cooked" entry is used directly, with no conversion.
Step 2 — apply a cooking yield
When an ingredient is weighed raw but cooked in the recipe (meat, fish, pan-fried, grilled or simmered vegetables), it loses water during cooking: its weight drops, but not its total calories. A cooking yield (a factor that reflects this weight loss) is applied, or the weight of the finished dish is estimated, so the final calculation reflects the actual weight on the plate, not the pre-cooking weight. Ingredients with no documented loss rate — breading, batter, eggs, sauces, already-cooked starches — keep a neutral factor.
Step 3 — add up and divide by servings
Once each ingredient is weighed and converted, their calories and macronutrients are added up to get the dish's total mass and values. That total is then divided by the declared number of servings to get the weight and values of one portion. It's that "per portion" value that shows up when the recipe is logged.
Step 4 — check with the Atwater formula
The final check: the Atwater formula, which says 1 gram of protein or carbs provides about 4 kcal, and 1 gram of fat about 9 kcal. Recalculating calories from the declared protein, carbs and fat for a portion should land close to the displayed total. Too large a gap flags an entry or conversion error to track down. Two known limits: the formula doesn't count alcohol (about 7 kcal/g), so an alcoholic drink normally sits away from the total; and a consistency check doesn't prove a value is accurate, only that it isn't contradictory.
What sets this method apart from a generic estimate
For a sourced recipe, the difference from an overall estimate by dish type comes down to three choices:
- A database entry per ingredient, not an average per dish. Every ingredient is linked to a precise composition table entry, whose source is recorded with the recipe.
- Cooking yield isn't ignored. Raw chicken breast and grilled chicken breast don't weigh the same for the same amount of meat — ignoring that skews, one way or the other, a cooked dish's calories per 100 g and the weight of a portion.
- A trail, not a black box. When a traditional ingredient has no exact match in the database (for example Mexican crema replaced by a light cream), the substitution is recorded with the recipe rather than hidden behind a number that looks precise.
See also how macronutrients (protein, carbs, fat) are explained and the full breakdown of the library's recipes, cuisine by cuisine.
Create a personal recipeStart from a blank page, or duplicate one of your recipes.Get Radish →What about a fully personal recipe?
A recipe created from scratch in the app adds up its ingredients and divides the total by the number of servings, but without a cooking yield: the weight used is the sum of the ingredients as you enter them, not the weight of the cooked dish. When you add an ingredient by hand, it comes from the same food database and the same search as when you log a single food, and its values are that database's values for the weight you enter. If you have the AI describe the recipe, however, each ingredient's values are estimated by the AI; the app only realigns an ingredient's calories when they are far off from its macronutrients.
Two practical consequences. Enter each ingredient in the state you weigh it: weighed raw, pick the "raw" entry when the database offers both; weighed cooked, the "cooked" one. And since a portion's weight is calculated from the ingredients entered, not from the finished dish, log your recipe in servings rather than in grams weighed on the plate: meat that loses water or rice that absorbs it would skew the result.
General information about how recipe nutritional calculation works in the app, not individual nutritional advice. Accurate as of September 14, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
How does Radish calculate a recipe's calories?
For a sourced library recipe, every ingredient is linked to a precise entry in an official composition database (CIQUAL first) and weight loss during cooking is taken into account; values are added up, then divided by the number of servings. A final check (the Atwater formula) tests the consistency between declared calories and macronutrients. A personal recipe adds up its ingredients and divides the total by the number of servings, without a cooking yield.
What is a cooking yield and why does it matter?
It's the factor that reflects an ingredient's weight loss during cooking (water evaporating), for example for grilled meat or simmered vegetables. Without this factor, the weight used for the calculation would be the raw ingredient's, which systematically skews the cooked dish's calories per 100 g.
What is the Atwater check?
A consistency calculation: 1 g of protein or carbs ≈ 4 kcal, 1 g of fat ≈ 9 kcal. Recalculating calories from the declared macronutrients for a portion should land close to the displayed calories; a large gap flags an error to fix.
Does this method apply to my own recipes?
Partly: a personal recipe adds up its ingredients (picked from the app's food database, or estimated by the AI if you describe it) and divides the total by the number of servings. The cooking yield is not applied: the weight used is that of the ingredients as entered, not that of the cooked dish. Logging the recipe in servings rather than grams avoids the resulting gap.
Key takeaway: a sourced library recipe is built ingredient by ingredient from an official database, with a cooking yield and an Atwater check; a personal recipe adds up its ingredients as you enter them and divides the total by the number of servings, without a cooking yield, which is why logging it in servings works best.
General information about how recipe nutritional calculation works in the app, not individual nutritional advice.
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