The latest articles on DEV Community by incoinco (@inco). https://dev.to/inco https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4168397%2Fbb699152-dde4-47cd-8989-b70f29d9284b.jpg https://dev.to/inco en incoinco Wed, 07 Oct 2026 08:56:39 +0000 https://dev.to/inco/i-built-a-nutrition-api-for-a-side-project-sharing-it-here-in-case-anyone-finds-it-useful-2bgk https://dev.to/inco/i-built-a-nutrition-api-for-a-side-project-sharing-it-here-in-case-anyone-finds-it-useful-2bgk <p>I've been working on a small side project and ended up building a nutrition API to solve a problem I kept running into: every food-related app needs the same data (calories, macros, ingredients), but there's no easy way to get it without either paying hundreds a month or scraping nutrition labels off the web.</p> <p>So I packaged Open Food Facts — a free, open database with 3M+ products — into a clean REST API and put it on RapidAPI.</p> <h2> What it does </h2> <p>Two main endpoints:</p> <p><strong>Search by name</strong><br> GET /food/search?q=nutella</p> <p>Returns the top matching products with brand, image, and Nutri-Score grade.</p> <p><strong>Look up by barcode</strong><br> GET /food/barcode/3017620422003</p> <p>Returns the full nutrition panel: calories, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugars, proteins, salt, fiber, plus ingredients and Nutri-Score.</p> <h2> Example response </h2> <p>{<br> "id": "3017620422003",<br> "name": "Nutella",<br> "brand": "Ferrero",<br> "nutrition_grade": "e",<br> "nutriments": {<br> "energy_kcal": 539,<br> "fat": 30.9,<br> "sugars": 56.3,<br> "proteins": 6.3<br> }<br> }</p> <h2> What it's useful for </h2> <ul> <li>Calorie counters and macro trackers</li> <li>Meal planners and recipe apps</li> <li>Barcode scanner apps</li> <li>Diet dashboards</li> <li>Fitness companion apps</li> </ul> <h2> Try it </h2> <p>There's a free tier if anyone wants to test it out. Would love honest feedback — what's missing, what would make it more useful, what would make you actually use it in a project.</p> <p>my project : <a href="https://rapidapi.com/kanenas-FTyg1YyYI/api/food-nutrition-api3" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://rapidapi.com/kanenas-FTyg1YyYI/api/food-nutrition-api3</a></p> <p>Still iterating on it. If you're building something in this space, feel free to reach out.</p> api backend buildinpublic showdev