A Nut Code (short for “nutrition code”) lets apps and websites exchange data about the nutritional content of a meal using a short URL-like string of text, which can also be formatted as a QR code for easy scanning with a smartphone.

Existing food diary apps let you look up many packaged foods and chain-restaurant meals by brand name, or by scanning a barcode. But you won’t find your grandma’s home-cooked recipes or your local mom-and-pop restaurant’s meals in your food diary’s database.

Meanwhile, many recipe apps have a feature that calculates nutrition information automatically, but getting that information into your food diary app is often a hassle. With a Nut Code, a recipe app can include a button, link, or QR code that automatically loads the nutrition information into a compatible food diary app. Restaurants can also print a Nut Code for each item in their menu, and printed cookbooks can include scannable codes with their recipes.

Finally, because Nut Codes aren’t looked up in a central database, the information will never go offline, and your food choices can remain private.

The initial implementation only handles macronutrients, i.e. carbohydrates, protein, and fat. This information is enough to get a good estimate of the total calories in a meal, and acts as a jumping-off point to later support vitamins and minerals as well as information for people with dietary restrictions.