Where every number comes from.

Most calorie sites either copy from one source (usually the brand's own page) or aggregate without telling you which entry came from where. Nutrogine does the opposite: every numeric value on the site is tagged with one of four Source Badges, and clicking the badge takes you to the actual primary source.

The four source types

●USDA verified USDA verified

The number comes from USDA FoodData Central, the public-domain federal nutrition database. We use three of its datasets:

• Foundation Foods — high-quality lab analyses for ~395 basic foods (specific cuts of chicken, varieties of rice, etc.).
• FNDDS (Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies) — ~5,400 composite dishes that match what Americans actually eat (chicken burrito with rice and beans, latte with whole milk, etc.).
• SR Legacy — the older Standard Reference database, ~7,800 foods. Slightly outdated but very broad.

When you see a USDA badge with an FDC ID, that links directly to the record. USDA data is in the public domain (CC0), which means we can cite it freely and you can verify everything we show.

●Brand-claimed Brand-claimed

The number comes from the chain's own published nutrition page or nutrition calculator (Chipotle's nutrition calculator, Sweetgreen's published macros, etc.). These are usually internal lab analyses commissioned by the brand and are typically accurate for the idealized portion the brand advertises.

Worth knowing: actual portions vary by store, by employee, and by time of day. So a brand-claimed number is the "official" answer, not the "this is exactly what's in your bowl" answer.

●User-reported User-reported

Aggregated from public customer reports — primarily Reddit (r/Chipotle, r/SweetgreenMenu, r/MacroFactor and similar), Yelp reviews, Lemon8 food posts, and TikTok food reviews. We link to the specific posts so you can read the original context.

These numbers are not as precise as USDA or brand data — they're estimates from people with kitchen scales and phones. But they're where you find the truth about actual portion variance, real-world deviations from advertised macros, and what regular customers experience.

●Estimated Estimated

We didn't have a direct primary source, so we cross-referenced USDA components to compute an estimate. Used sparingly and clearly marked. If you see an Estimated badge somewhere it shouldn't be, let us know.

What we don't do

• We don't physically test food. We're a research aggregation site, not a lab. When we say "Chipotle bowls vary 14–27 oz", that's based on aggregated public reports — not us buying 50 bowls.
• We don't fake reviews or testimonials. If we don't have real users to quote, we leave the section empty.
• We don't recommend what you should eat. Nutrogine shows numbers. A registered dietitian recommends eating patterns. We stay in our lane.
• We don't run ads or take affiliate money from any of the apps or restaurants we cover. App comparison verdicts are honest research, not paid placements.

When we get something wrong

We will. The data refreshes constantly — restaurants change recipes, portions creep up or shrink, USDA reissues entries. If you find a number that's stale or wrong, please email us (or reply to one of Alec's Twitter posts) and we'll update it.

Every page on the site shows the date it was last updated. If a page is more than 6 months old and you find a discrepancy, it's almost certainly out of date — please tell us.

Want to verify?

That's the whole point of source badges. Click them. Read the linked Reddit post. Open the USDA FDC entry. Check the brand's PDF. We'd rather you trust the data because you verified it than because we said so.