# What Kallo is

> A way of logging meals that starts from the sentence you would say, not from a search box.

Most nutrition apps make you translate your meal into their language: search for
each ingredient, pick a row that looks close, guess the portion, repeat. For a
bowl of noodle soup with ten things in it, that takes longer than the meal did.

Kallo starts somewhere else. You describe the meal the way you would tell a
friend — in Vietnamese, in English, or a mix — and Kallo handles the rest.

> Example — described as: "chicken caesar salad and an iced latte"

| Dish | Protein | Carbs | Fat | Calories |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Chicken caesar salad | 34g | 18g | 26g | 450 kcal |
| Iced latte | 6g | 12g | 5g | 125 kcal |
| **Total** | **40g** | **30g** | **31g** | **575 kcal** |

## What Kallo does

**Reads what you wrote.** No search box, no dropdowns. You write "grilled
chicken breast with rice, light on the rice" and Kallo separates it into dishes,
then into ingredients, with the cooking method attached.

**Matches against real data.** Every ingredient is matched to food composition
data — the [Vietnam National Food Composition Table 2007](https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/food_composition/documents/pdf/VTN_FCT_2007.pdf), plus [FAO](https://www.fao.org/food-composition/tables-and-databases/en/) and [USDA](https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/) —
rather than a number the model invented.

**Asks when the portion is unclear.** How many grams "one bowl" is depends on
the bowl. When there genuinely isn't enough to settle it, Kallo asks which size
you used instead of guessing.

**Gives you numbers with their limits attached.** An estimate is an estimate.
Kallo gives you figures good enough to decide with, and says where it is
unsure.

## Manual logging, done properly

Kallo is not trying to stop you thinking about your meals. You are still the one
who knows what you ate and how much of it, and says so. What Kallo removes is
the pointless part in the middle: translating that meal into ten searches, ten
close-enough rows, ten guessed portions.

It is also why Kallo starts from text rather than a photo. A sentence shows you
what Kallo understood, lets you correct the exact thing that is wrong, and gives
the same result next time — see
[How estimates work](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/estimates/how-it-works) for the full comparison.

The other ways of logging are still there, for when they are the easier option:

- [Manual logging](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/logging/manual) — when you have a scale and want
  gram-accurate figures.
- [Barcode scanning](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/logging/barcode) — for packaged food that already has
  a nutrition label.
- [Re-logging](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/logging/relog) — for the meals you eat over and over.
- [Cheat mode](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/logging/cheat-mode) — for occasions you cannot itemise at
  all.

## What Kallo does not do

- **It is not a medical device.** It does not diagnose or treat anything, and it
  does not replace a doctor or dietitian.
- **It does not promise exactness.** If you need gram-accurate figures, weigh
  your ingredients and use [manual logging](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/logging/manual).
- **It does not train shared models on your content.** See the
  [privacy policy](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/legal/privacy).

## Where to start

If you are new, read these in order:

1. [Log your first meal](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/quickstart) — five minutes, no setup needed.
2. [Profile and targets](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/profile-and-targets) — so the numbers describe
   your body, not an average one.
3. [Describing a meal](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/logging/describe-a-meal) — how to write for the
   best results.

If you are curious where the numbers come from,
[How estimates work](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/estimates/how-it-works) is your page.

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_Source: [https://kallo.fit/en/docs/overview](https://kallo.fit/en/docs/overview) · Last updated: 2026-08-03 · Kallo docs index: [https://kallo.fit/llms.txt](https://kallo.fit/llms.txt)_