Our scientific sources
DIAT doesn't guess your calories. Every number shown in the app comes from a public database or a published formula. Here they are, and here's where to check them yourself.
Last updated: August 14, 2026
Where the numbers come from
Five sources, all public and freely consultable. No nutritional value is invented by artificial intelligence: AI is used to recognise foods and estimate portions, never to produce the calories.
Calories, macros and micronutrients
Ciqual table — ANSES
France's reference food composition table, published by ANSES, the national agency for food safety. DIAT relies on 3,484 of its foods: the calories, macronutrients and 27 micronutrients you see are taken from it as they are, with no adjustment on our side. It also powers the values of the 324 recipes on this site.
ciqual.anses.frPackaged products and barcodes
Open Food Facts
When you scan the barcode of a packaged product, its values come from Open Food Facts, the open collaborative database built from manufacturers' labels. That data is self-declared: some fields may be incomplete or approximate, and the app always lets you correct them. Each food's origin is shown on its detail sheet.
world.openfoodfacts.orgResting metabolism and daily needs
Mifflin-St Jeor equation
Your resting expenditure is calculated with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, published in 1990 and since regarded as the most reliable predictive formula for the general population. Your total expenditure follows from it, through an activity factor between 1.2 (sedentary) and 1.9 (very active).
Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST, Hill LA, Scott BJ, Daugherty SA, Koh YO. A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. Am J Clin Nutr. 1990;51(2):241-247.
View on PubMedCalories burned during activity
Compendium of Physical Activities
Each of the 150 activities in the journal carries a MET value, the unit measuring the intensity of an effort relative to rest. These values come from the Compendium of Physical Activities, the international reference used in research since 1993 and updated in 2011.
Ainsworth BE, Haskell WL, Herrmann SD, et al. 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities: a second update of codes and MET values. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011;43(8):1575-1581.
View on PubMedDaily intake percentages
EFSA dietary reference values
The micronutrient gauges compare your intake to the dietary reference values of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which differ for women and men. That's what makes it possible to say "62% of your iron" instead of a raw figure in milligrams that means nothing to anyone.
multimedia.efsa.europa.euHow your target is calculated
Five steps, in this order. Nothing is random and nothing is decided by AI: these are formulas, applied to what you entered in your profile.
Resting metabolism
What your body burns at rest over 24 hours. Men: 10 × weight(kg) + 6.25 × height(cm) − 5 × age + 5. Women: the same equation, with − 161 instead of + 5.
Total expenditure
Resting metabolism multiplied by your usual activity level, from 1.2 to 1.9. The workouts you actually log are added on top, using their MET values, and are never counted twice.
The deficit or surplus
Both follow from your target weight and your deadline, based on roughly 7,700 kcal per kilo of body mass. The pace is capped: at most 1% of body weight per week when losing, 0.5% when gaining. A target that is too fast is brought back to that limit rather than applied as is.
Safety floors
Your calorie target never drops below 1,500 kcal for a man or 1,200 kcal for a woman, whatever the previous calculation produced.
The macronutrient split
Protein is anchored to your body weight, from 1.6 to 2.1 g per kilo depending on the goal. Fat follows, with a floor of 0.6 g per kilo to protect hormonal balance. Carbohydrates take the remaining calories, and if a large deficit squeezes them, fat gives way first.
An estimate stays an estimate
Recognising a food in a photo is reliable; guessing its weight is far less so, since a picture rarely offers a scale reference. That is the main source of error, which is why every quantity stays editable in one tap after the analysis. A corrected portion instantly recomputes calories, macros and micronutrients from the same Ciqual table.
DIAT is not a medical device
The app makes no diagnosis and does not replace a healthcare professional. In case of illness, pregnancy, ongoing treatment or an eating disorder, talk to a doctor or a dietitian before changing your diet.
Formulas describe an average
Mifflin-St Jeor predicts the expenditure of a population, not yours to the calorie: two people of the same height, weight, age and sex can differ by several hundred calories. Treat the starting figure as a reference point to adjust against your real weight trend, not as a truth.