There are two ways to begin logging food:
Meal slot buttons — tap the "+" next to the meal you want (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, or Snack). The entry is added directly to that meal.
Global "+" button — tap the red "+" in the bottom-right corner. Welmi auto-assigns the meal type based on the current time of day.
Don't see the red "+" button? On some iPhones Welmi shows a new home screen without it. There, tap a meal circle — Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or Snack — under Meals Logged on the Nutrition tab. The camera opens with Scan Meal, Barcode, Describe and Search at the bottom, and your Favorites are under Recent Meals at the top. Wherever this article says to tap the red "+", use a meal circle instead.
You can add several dishes to a single meal — there is no limit. The meal slot shows the last dish you added; to see the full list of everything logged for the day, tap Journal > just below the profile icon (on the new home screen: View all > next to Meals Logged).
Logging methods
Once you start an entry you can choose how to log it:
Method | How it works |
Scan Meal | Take a photo and let the AI identify the food |
Describe | Tap the microphone and say what you ate, naming each ingredient |
Search | Type the name of a food, pick it from the database, and set the weight |
Favorites | Add a dish you saved earlier in one tap |
There is no option to type a free-text description and no separate manual entry form. To log food by typing, use Search. To log a food with your own values, find it in Search and correct the values in the meal card (see "Creating your own dish and saving it to Favorites" below).
Using the AI Food Scanner
Select or create a meal entry.
Choose Scan Meal.
Take a photo of your food (or choose one from your gallery).
The AI analyzes the image and displays what it recognizes.
Review the suggested food items, portions, and nutrition values.
Adjust anything that looks off — you can edit names, weights, and macros.
Tap Confirm to save.
Tip: AI recognition is not always perfect. If the result is wrong, edit the entry manually or add individual ingredients one by one. You can also log the food by voice with Describe or find it with Search instead.
Using the Barcode Scanner
Point your camera at a product's barcode or packaging. Welmi uses a worldwide product database to look up nutrition data. Some regional or store-brand products may not be found — in that case, find the food or the closest match in Search and correct the values in the meal card.
Editing a logged meal
After saving a meal you can still change it:
Portion or weight — open the entry and adjust the amount.
Calories and macros — tap the values to edit them directly.
Meal type — change which meal slot the entry belongs to (e.g., move from Lunch to Dinner).
Creating your own dish and saving it to Favorites
You can combine several ingredients into one dish, such as your usual breakfast or a home recipe:
Log the first ingredient. For example, tap the red "+" in the bottom-right corner, choose Search, find the food and set its weight.
Open the meal card of that entry.
In the Ingredients section, tap Add More and add the other ingredients with the weight of each.
Welmi calculates calories and macros for the whole dish from its ingredients.
To reuse the dish, tap Favorites (the star button) in the meal card. Next time, tap the red "+", choose Favorites and pick the dish. It is added in one tap, and you don't need to enter the ingredients again.
A food with your own values. There is no separate manual entry form. Find the food in Search. If it is not in the database, pick the closest match. Open its meal card and correct the weight, calories, protein, fat and carbs, then save it to Favorites. It is saved with your values and added with them next time.
Deleting a meal or ingredient
There are two ways to delete a logged meal:
From the meal card — open the meal you want to remove and tap Delete inside the card.
From the diary list — open the Nutrition block on the home screen, tap the ">" arrow to expand the meal list, then either tap the entry and use Delete, or long-press the entry and choose Delete from the menu.
To remove a single ingredient from a meal:
Open the meal card and tap the ingredient you want to remove.
On the ingredient card, tap the delete button in the top-right corner.
Adjusting calorie and macro targets
Go to Profile → Calories & Macros to set your daily calorie goal and macro split. For guidance on choosing targets, see Set up your goals.
Logging food for a previous day
Tap the calendar icon in the top-left corner or the date next to it, select the date you want, then add food entries as usual. On the new home screen you can also tap a day in the week strip below the date.
You can't log food for a future date. The calendar only lets you pick today and past days. If you prepare meals ahead, save them to Favorites so you can add them in one tap on the day you eat them.
FAQ
Should I weigh food before or after cooking? Enter the weight of what you actually ate. If you weighed raw ingredients, log the raw weight; if you weighed the cooked meal, log the cooked weight.
The AI recognized my food incorrectly — what do I do? The AI identifies food by how it looks, so it sometimes confuses foods that look alike. You can fix the entry:
If part of it is wrong, open the meal card, tap the wrong ingredient and delete it, then add the missing ones with Add More in the Ingredients section. You can also correct the weight, calories and macros there. Calories and macros are recalculated automatically.
If it is completely wrong, delete the entry and log the food with Search. Tap the red "+" in the bottom-right corner, choose Search, type the name and set the weight. You can also log it by voice with Describe.
For next time, save the corrected dish to Favorites. It is then added in one tap with the right values, without scanning.
If you send support the photo and a screenshot of the entry, we pass the example on to the development team.
Can I add a text or voice description to a scanned photo? Not at the moment. Each entry uses one method: a scan, Describe (voice) or Search. To get a more accurate result:
After scanning, open the meal card and correct it. Change the weight, remove ingredients that aren't on your plate, and add missing ones with Add More.
Or log the whole meal with Describe and say every ingredient.
Save the corrected dish to Favorites so it is added with the right values next time.
Can I add several photos or scan a second item for the same meal? You can't attach several photos to one entry, but a meal can hold as many entries as you like. After saving the first one, tap the "+" on that meal slot on the home screen and scan the next item. Each photo becomes a separate entry, and the calories add up in that meal.
The meal slot on the home screen shows only the last dish you added, so earlier entries may look replaced. They are still there. Tap Journal > just below the profile icon (on the new home screen: View all > next to Meals Logged) to see everything you logged for the day.
Can I log a meal without taking a photo? Yes. Use Describe (voice), Search or Favorites, no photo required. To log food by typing, use Search.
Fiber, sugar or sodium shows 0 or looks wrong. Can I change it? Fiber, sugar and sodium come only from the food database. Some foods don't have these values filled in yet, so the app shows 0 even when the food contains them. You can't enter or edit fiber, sugar or sodium yourself at the moment. Of the nutrition values, only calories, protein, fat and carbs can be edited. If a food shows missing or wrong values, tell support which food it is. We pass these to the team so the database can be updated.
Can I add a fifth meal or rename a meal slot? No. The meal slots are fixed: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snack. You can't add more slots or rename them. Each slot holds any number of entries, so log extra meals under Snack. Your daily calories and macros count everything you logged that day, whichever slot it is in.
I can only log 1 meal per day — why? The free version of Welmi limits food logging to one entry per day. Once you reach the limit, the "+" button is replaced by a gift icon that opens the subscription screen. Upgrade to Pro for unlimited logging — see Plans and pricing.
Why can't I add my lunch (or dinner, or a second meal)? You have most likely reached the daily logging limit of the free version. The free plan allows one food entry per day; after that, the "+" button changes to a gift icon, which opens the subscription screen. For unlimited logging, you need an active Pro subscription.
I see a gift icon instead of "+" — how do I remove it? The gift icon is not a bug — it appears when you have reached the free plan's daily limit of one food log per day, and tapping it opens the in-app subscription screen. To get the regular "+" button back and log meals without limits, subscribe to Pro. If you already have an active Pro subscription, tap Restore on the subscription screen to reactivate it.
What is the flame/fire icon? That is your streak counter. It shows how many consecutive days you have logged food.
Where can I see my food history? All logged meals appear in the Nutrition section on the home screen. To open the full list of everything you logged for the day, tap Journal > just below the profile icon (on the new home screen: View all > next to Meals Logged).
Good to know
AI accuracy — the scanner provides estimates. Always review and edit if the values look wrong.
Free plan limit — 1 food log entry per day. Pro removes this limit.
Personalized advice — check the Coach tab for meal and nutrition guidance tailored to your goals.
Reports — weekly and monthly nutrition reports are not available yet.