Before you get there
Type the name, and the town if it is an independent. Loopa assembles what it can find for that place and ranks it against your day. A chain it has seen before comes back instantly.
Eating out
See what fits before you order.
Name the restaurant or photograph the menu, and Loopa compares what is available against the calories and macros you have left today.
Requires Loopa Premium In the iPhone and Android apps.
Start on Loopa Basic. This feature unlocks with Premium, at $12.99 a month or $69.99 a year.
Why it matters
The meal you did not cook is the one that breaks the week
You can log a restaurant meal afterwards and feel bad about it, or you can spend thirty seconds before you order and pick something that fits. Eating Out is the second one. It does not decide what is healthy; it compares what is on the menu against the day you have actually had.
Name it, or photograph itThe restaurant, or the menu in your hands
Loopa finds the dishesWith whatever nutrition it can source
It filters firstAnything flagged for what you avoid is out
Then it ranksAgainst the calories and macros you have left
You orderAnd log it in a tap afterwards
Two ways in
Give it a name, or give it a photograph
Depending on whether you are deciding where to go or already sitting down.
When you are already at the table
Point the camera at the menu and Loopa reads the dishes off it. This is the one that works for a place with no website and a chalkboard. The photograph is not kept.
Where the menu comes from
Found, not fetched from an official feed
Worth being exact about, because a menu you trust and a menu you check are different things.
From the web, preferring the restaurant’s own site
There is no official menu feed behind this. Loopa looks the restaurant up and assembles what it can find, which is why a small independent yields less than a national chain.
And always labelled
A figure is marked published only when the restaurant publishes it. Everything else is an estimate and says so. Chains publish; most independents do not.
And it says that too
If nothing can be found, Loopa offers typical dishes for the cuisine and tells you the names and figures will not match what they actually serve. That answer is kept for a day only, so a real menu replaces it as soon as one exists.
A month for chains, a week for independents
Menus change. A cached menu that has gone stale is marked stale rather than served as current, and two different members reporting a problem with one clears it.
Filtered is not the same as allergy-safe
Loopa filters out dishes flagged for something on your avoid list, and that filter runs before anything is scored so a good macro fit can never outvote it. It also tells you which of your avoidances it could not map onto anything in the menu data, rather than leaving you to assume all of them applied.
Menu data cannot prove an absence. Ingredients change, kitchens substitute, cross-contact happens, and published allergen information is often incomplete or out of date. Loopa’s own vocabulary has no value meaning “free of”, deliberately.
If you have a food allergy, confirm it with the restaurant. That conversation is the only thing that settles it.
How it ranks
Fit for your day, not a verdict on the food
Loopa does not grade dishes as healthy or unhealthy. It scores how well each one lands in what you have left.
Macro fit
How well the dish uses the calories and macros you still have today. Going over is penalised exactly as much as leaving the same amount unused, because both miss the target.
Your diet style
Worked out from the dish’s macro ratios rather than from adjectives in its description, which is what stops a menu selling itself to the ranking.
What one change would do
How much better the dish gets from a single realistic modification, like dressing on the side. The best one, not all of them added up.
Your restrictions
Anything flagged for something you avoid is removed first and cannot be scored back in.
When nothing fits
It says nothing fits
This is the part worth trusting the feature for.
By default Loopa suppresses anything that does not genuinely fit what you have left, and it will return an empty list rather than padding it with the dish it just decided against. An app that always has an answer is an app whose answer means nothing.
When that happens you can ask for the closest available fit instead. The threshold drops, the same dishes are ranked the same way, and Loopa shows you the best of what is actually there. It is your call, made knowingly, rather than a recommendation dressed up as a good idea.
Two answers: what fits, and what is closest. Never a third one invented to fill the screen.
Privacy
The restaurant name leaves. Nothing about you does.
The lookup and the ranking are deliberately separate steps, and only the first one goes anywhere.
A name, and sometimes a town
That is the whole outbound request. For a chain it is just the chain, because the menu is the same everywhere and the town would only narrow it pointlessly.
Everything about you
Your calories, your macros, your goal, your diet style, the foods you avoid and your account. None of it is part of the lookup.
On Loopa’s own servers
The menu comes back, and only then does it meet your day. That step makes no network call and writes nothing down.
Because it holds nothing personal
A menu is a menu. It is stored once and served to everyone, which is also why a chain you have never looked up is instant.
FAQ
Questions about Eating Out
What people want to know before they rely on it at a table.
How does Loopa know the menu?
It researches the restaurant on the web and assembles the dishes it can find, preferring the restaurant’s own site. Nutrition figures are marked as published only where the restaurant publishes them; otherwise they are estimates and are labelled that way. Menus change, locations differ, and what Loopa found may not be exactly what is on the table.
What if it cannot find the restaurant?
It says so, and offers typical dishes for that kind of cuisine instead, clearly marked as generic. Those will not match what the restaurant actually serves and the app tells you that rather than letting you assume otherwise. A generic answer is also only kept for a day, so a real menu replaces it as soon as one can be found.
How are the suggestions ranked?
Half the score is how well the dish fits the calories and macros you have left today. Thirty per cent is how it fits your diet style, worked out from the macro ratios rather than from words in a description. The last twenty per cent is how much better the dish gets from a single realistic modification. Anything flagged for something you avoid is filtered out first and cannot be outvoted by a good score.
What if nothing fits?
It tells you nothing fits. Loopa would rather return an empty list than pad it with the dish it had just decided was wrong for your day. You can ask for the closest available fit instead, which drops the threshold and shows you the best of what is there.
Is there a limit?
20 new restaurants a day. A restaurant Loopa has already looked up costs nothing, however many times you open it, and a lookup that fails for a reason on our side is refunded. Chains are remembered for a month and independents for a week, so in practice the places you actually go stop counting quickly.
Does Loopa send my health data to a restaurant service?
No. The only thing that leaves is the restaurant name, and for an independent the town, so the right menu comes back. Your calories, your macros, your goal and the foods you avoid never leave. The ranking happens on Loopa’s own servers after the menu arrives, and the cached menu is shared between members precisely because it contains nothing about anyone.
Can I photograph a menu instead?
Yes. Point the camera at the menu in front of you and Loopa reads the dishes off it. Calorie figures from a photographed menu are almost always estimates, because a menu rarely prints them, and they are labelled as estimates. The photograph is not kept.
Is Eating Out on the web?
Not yet. It is in the iPhone and Android apps. A browser has a simpler order helper where you paste menu text, which is a different thing without the restaurant lookup, the ranking or the caching.
The next time somebody else is cooking
Eating Out is part of Loopa Premium, in the iPhone and Android apps. Loopa Basic still logs the meal afterwards, free and unlimited.
Start on Loopa Basic. This feature unlocks with Premium, at $12.99 a month or $69.99 a year.