Help & FAQ

Mealiv is a free food and meal planning platform that helps you make informed decisions about what you eat. You can search for product nutrition information, build meals, save recipes to your cookbook, plan your weekly meals, and create smart shopping lists — all in one place.

You can search for products and view nutritional information without an account. However, to save meals, recipes, shopping lists, and use the meal planner, you'll need to create a free account. Registration only takes a moment and requires an email address and password.

Yes! The core features are completely free, including product search, meal building, your cookbook, and shopping lists. We also offer a Pro subscription with additional features like the Meal Planner. You can try Pro free for 30 days with no payment details required.

Mealiv works on any device with a modern web browser — desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone. There's no app to download; simply visit the website. You can also add it to your home screen on mobile for an app-like experience.

Our product data is powered by Open Food Facts, a collaborative, free, and open database of food products from around the world. The database contains over 3 million products contributed by thousands of volunteers. While we strive for accuracy, we always recommend checking the product packaging for the most up-to-date information, especially regarding allergens.

NutriScore rates the overall nutritional quality of a product from A (best) to E (worst), considering calories, sugar, saturated fat, salt, fibre, protein, and fruit/vegetable content.

NOVA classifies food by processing level: 1 (unprocessed), 2 (processed culinary ingredients), 3 (processed foods), and 4 (ultra-processed).

Eco-Score rates the environmental impact from A (lowest impact) to E (highest impact), based on lifecycle analysis including production, transport, and packaging.

Yes! On the homepage, tap the barcode icon next to the search bar. This will open your device's camera so you can scan any product barcode. The product's nutritional information will appear instantly if it's in our database.

If you search for a product or scan a barcode that isn't found, you'll have the option to add it yourself. Simply fill in the product details, nutritional information, and dietary tags. Your contribution helps grow the database for everyone.

Go to the Meal Builder from the homepage or navigation menu. Search for products to add as ingredients, give your meal a name, and save it. The meal's total nutritional information is calculated automatically from all the ingredients you add. You can also find cooking videos for your meals.

On the My Cookbook page, use the "Import from web page" feature. Paste the web address of any recipe page and we'll automatically extract the recipe name, ingredients, instructions, and other details. Most popular recipe websites are supported. Imported recipes are for your personal use only.

Yes! If you have recipe web pages saved as browser bookmarks, you can bulk import them. On the My Cookbook page, use the "Import from bookmarks" option. Export your bookmarks from your browser as an HTML file, upload it, select which bookmarks to import, and we'll process them all for you. You can also paste web addresses directly.

Open any recipe from your cookbook, then click the "Edit Recipe" button. You can modify the recipe name, ingredients, instructions, and other details. Click "Save Changes" when you're done. You can also add personal notes, rate recipes, and attach cooking videos.

There are several ways to add items: search for products directly on the shopping list page, add all ingredients from a meal or recipe with one click, or use the Meal Planner's "Add All to Shopping List" button to add everything from your meal plan at once. You can also add custom items manually.

Yes! Your shopping list includes links to popular online grocery retailers. You can open the retailer's website alongside your shopping list to quickly find and add items to your online basket. The floating shopping panel keeps your list visible while you browse the retailer's site.

The aisle view automatically organises your shopping list items by supermarket aisle categories (e.g. Fruits, Dairy & Eggs, Meat & Poultry). This makes it faster to shop in-store as you can work through each aisle without backtracking. Toggle between "Meal" view (grouped by recipe) and "Aisle" view using the buttons at the top of your list.

Yes! Click the print button on your shopping list page. The printed list will match whichever view you currently have selected — either grouped by meal/recipe or organised by aisle. The print layout is optimised for A4 paper with checkboxes next to each item.

The Free tier includes product search, meal building, your cookbook, recipe importing, and shopping lists. Pro adds the Meal Planner feature, which lets you plan meals for the week ahead and add all ingredients to your shopping list with one click. Visit our Pro page for full details.

You can activate a 30-day free trial of Pro features at any time — no payment details required. The trial starts when you choose to activate it, not when you register. When the trial ends, you'll simply return to the Free tier. All your data (meals, recipes, shopping lists) is kept safe regardless of your subscription status.

You can cancel your Pro subscription at any time from your account settings. You'll continue to have access to Pro features until the end of your current billing period. After that, your account will revert to the Free tier but all your data will be preserved.

You can request account deletion from your account settings or by contacting us using the form below. When your account is deleted, all personal data and user-generated content (meals, recipes, shopping lists, meal plans) will be permanently removed within 30 days, in accordance with our Privacy Policy.