Quick answer: there is no honest single winner for everyone. For straightforward Australian food logging, Easy Diet Diary is a strong fit. For very broad consumer micronutrient tracking, Cronometer goes deep. For mainstream logging, recipes and a Premium+ meal planner, MyFitnessPal is the familiar all-rounder. For Australian-first recipe nutrition, vitamins and minerals, meal planning and a shopping-list workflow in one place, MorselMetrics is built around that job. For dietitians and professional analysis, Foodworks Professional is the specialist Australian option.
Disclosure and method: MorselMetrics publishes this guide and is one of the products compared, so we do not crown ourselves “#1 overall”. We checked current official product/help pages on 7 October 2026 and compared the things that matter most for Australian users: food-data relevance, micronutrient depth, recipes, planning, grocery workflow and transparency.
Features and paid tiers can change. The links in this guide go to the products' own documentation where practical, and there are no affiliate links.
The best nutrition trackers for Australians, compared
This is not a fake leaderboard. Each tool is good at a different job, and some are much more Australian-specific than others.
| Tracker | Best for | Australian fit | Micronutrients | Recipes & planning | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MorselMetricsAustralia-first web app | Recipes, micronutrients, meal planning and shopping in one workflow | Source-backed Australian food data and AU/NZ nutrient references | Detailed vitamins and minerals alongside calories and macros | Recipe analysis, day/week planning, Autofill and combined shopping lists | Not trying to be a comprehensive barcode database for every branded supermarket product |
| Easy Diet DiaryAustralian food logging | Simple everyday diary tracking with Australian foods and brands | Built specifically around Australian data; official site describes an extensive Australian food database | Tracks nutrients and personalised targets, with a simpler consumer focus | Food diary, barcode logging, goals, exercise and progress graphs | More diary-focused than a recipe-to-week-to-shopping planning system |
| CronometerDeep consumer micronutrients | People who want a very detailed nutrient diary | Works in Australia, but its own accuracy guidance commonly points users toward NCCDB and USDA generic entries rather than an Australia-first database | Up to 92 nutrients and compounds in current 2026 releases | Food diary, custom targets, reports and recipe tools | Excellent nutrient depth, but the reference/data model is not designed specifically around Australian food composition and AU/NZ NRVs |
| MyFitnessPalMainstream logging | Fast familiar logging, recipes and broad everyday food coverage | Available in Australia with a large global food database | Its help centre currently names vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron and potassium for standard micronutrient tracking | Recipe import is supported; Premium+ Meal Planner is available in Australia and can build plans and help with groceries | Barcode scanning is Premium, and micronutrient depth is narrower than specialist trackers |
| Foodworks ProfessionalDietitians & professionals | Clinical, consulting, research and professional nutrition analysis | Purpose-built for Australian and New Zealand nutrition work, with Australian food composition data and branded-food sources | 80+ nutrients/components and professional NRV analyses | Recipes, dietary records, client work and meal plans | Professional software rather than a lightweight consumer tracker |
Which one should you actually choose?
If your priority is entering what you ate, scanning Australian products, checking calories/macros/nutrients and keeping a simple diary, Easy Diet Diary has the strongest local consumer pedigree. It is also currently promoted as free and ad-free by Xyris.
If you want to inspect a very broad nutrient profile and trend it over time, Cronometer is hard to ignore. Its 2026 updates expanded tracking to as many as 92 nutrients and compounds.
If you value a huge mainstream ecosystem, saved meals, recipe importing and fast logging, MyFitnessPal remains a practical choice. Its Premium+ meal planner is now available in Australia, so it is no longer purely retrospective.
If you want to analyse recipes, see vitamins and minerals against Australian/New Zealand targets, build days or weeks, Autofill meal slots and turn the plan into one shopping list, that is the workflow MorselMetrics is designed around.
If you are a dietitian, nutritionist, researcher or recipe professional and need client records, detailed Australian/New Zealand data and professional analysis, Foodworks is operating in a different class from consumer food diaries.
Prioritise the tracker with the strongest current branded-food database for the products you actually buy. Australian food-composition depth and barcode convenience are related, but they are not the same thing.
Why Australian food data matters
Food databases are not interchangeable. Food names, fortification, brands, preparation states and serving conventions vary by country. If you live in Australia, an app that understands Australian foods can reduce avoidable matching errors and make the numbers easier to interpret.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand publishes the Australian Food Composition Database (AFCD). Release 3 contains 1,588 foods commonly available in Australia and reports at least 58 core nutrients, with more components available for some foods. FSANZ says the database is primarily built from high-quality laboratory analysis.
FSANZ also publishes AUSNUT 2023, the detailed food and nutrient dataset developed for the 2023 National Nutrition and Physical Activity Study. MorselMetrics uses Australian source data rather than treating a US-first generic food database as the default. You can read more on where our numbers come from.
Barcode data and micronutrient data are not the same thing
Barcode scanning is brilliant for convenience, but Australian nutrition information panels generally focus on energy, protein, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, sugars and sodium. Other nutrients appear in specific circumstances, such as relevant claims. That means a perfectly copied product label can still contain very little micronutrient detail.
If you mostly eat branded packaged foods, barcode coverage may matter more than laboratory-style nutrient depth. If you cook from ingredients and care about iron, calcium, folate, B12, magnesium and other micronutrients, composition data becomes much more important.
Australian targets matter too: RDI, AI, EAR and UL are different
A nutrient total only becomes meaningful when you know what it is being compared with. Australia and New Zealand use Nutrient Reference Values (NRVs), including Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI), Adequate Intake (AI), Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) and Upper Level of Intake (UL).
Those are not interchangeable. An RDI is not a medical prescription, and a UL is not a target to chase. Age, sex and life stage can also change the reference. A good Australian nutrition tracker should therefore show which reference it is using rather than throwing every nutrient into the same generic 100% bar.
MorselMetrics compares planned food with Australian/New Zealand references and keeps upper limits visually separate from targets. Foodworks also provides professional NRV analyses. Cronometer uses its own DRI-based target system, while MyFitnessPal's standard micronutrient targets are based on the Daily Value framework described in its help documentation.
If you care about vitamins and minerals, check the depth before committing
“Nutrition tracker” can mean anything from calories and protein to dozens of vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and other compounds.
As of 2026, Cronometer advertises tracking of up to 92 nutrients and compounds. Foodworks Professional advertises 80+ nutrients/components for professional analysis. MyFitnessPal's own help centre currently highlights vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron and potassium for micronutrient tracking. MorselMetrics focuses on source-backed macro and micronutrient analysis from Australian food data and keeps missing source values visible instead of silently treating them as zero.
If this is your main reason for tracking, do not just count how many nutrient names appear on a marketing page. Check whether the foods you actually eat have values for those nutrients and whether the app shows you when data are missing.
Browse Australian foods by nutrient in MorselMetrics →
Recipe tracking is where weak nutrition apps become obvious
If you cook, you need more than a barcode scanner. A useful recipe system should let you check the ingredient match, quantity, yield and serving calculation instead of turning a pasted recipe into an unexplained total.
MyFitnessPal supports manual recipes, bulk ingredient entry and importing recipes from the web. Foodworks supports detailed recipe analysis for professional use. MorselMetrics is built around inspectable recipe nutrition: ingredient-level food matches, serving maths, source coverage and the ability to reuse a saved recipe inside the meal planner.
At minimum, look for:
- editable ingredient matches and quantities;
- whole-recipe and per-serving nutrition;
- a clear serving/yield calculation;
- saved recipes you can actually reuse;
- visible missing nutrient data; and
- nutrition recalculation when you change an ingredient or portion.
Analyse a recipe in MorselMetrics →
The biggest difference: logging food versus planning food
Food logging answers “what did I eat?”. Meal planning answers “what am I going to eat?”. Those are different jobs.
MyFitnessPal now offers a Premium+ Meal Planner in Australia that can create plans, swap recipes and help with groceries. Foodworks Professional supports meal plans in a professional workflow. MorselMetrics is designed to keep the nutrition analysis and the meal plan tightly connected: build a day or week, see the calories, macros, vitamins and minerals, Autofill where useful, adjust the plan, then generate a combined shopping list from the meals you chose.
If your main frustration is discovering at 9 pm that your day was short on something, planning before you eat may be more useful than another faster logging screen.
See how the MorselMetrics meal planner and shopping list work →
What to check before you choose any tracker
Where MorselMetrics fits
MorselMetrics is not trying to win every category in this article. It is specifically built for people who want an Australian-first connection between recipe nutrition and meal planning.
The useful bit is the workflow: analyse food and recipes, inspect calories, macros, vitamins and minerals against Australian/New Zealand references, reuse the meals in a day or week, Autofill planning where useful, then turn the selected meals into a combined shopping list.
If you mainly want to scan packaged products as quickly as possible, another tracker may suit you better. If you want the deepest possible consumer nutrient diary regardless of Australian-first data, Cronometer deserves a look. If you want professional clinical software, Foodworks is the appropriate comparison. If you want nutrition analysis to actively help build the meals and shopping list, that is the gap MorselMetrics is aiming at.
Try the Australian-first planning workflow.
Analyse a recipe, see the vitamins and minerals behind it, build your meals into a day or week, and generate the shopping list from the plan.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best nutrition tracker in Australia?
It depends on the job. Easy Diet Diary is strong for straightforward Australian food logging, Cronometer for deep micronutrients, MyFitnessPal for familiar mainstream logging and Premium+ planning, MorselMetrics for Australian-first recipe nutrition plus planning and shopping, and Foodworks Professional for clinical or professional work.
Which nutrition tracker is best for micronutrients?
Cronometer is one of the deepest consumer nutrient trackers, with up to 92 nutrients and compounds in its current releases. MorselMetrics is more Australia-first and combines micronutrient analysis with recipe and meal-planning workflows. Foodworks Professional offers broad nutrient analysis for professional users.
Which nutrition apps use Australian food data?
MorselMetrics uses source-backed Australian food composition data. Easy Diet Diary is built around Australian data and brands. Foodworks Professional is designed specifically for Australian and New Zealand nutrition analysis and uses Australian food composition sources.
Is MyFitnessPal useful in Australia?
Yes. It supports food logging, saved meals, recipes and, on Premium+, Meal Planner in Australia. It is particularly useful if familiar food logging and broad product coverage matter to you. For deep micronutrient analysis, compare it with specialist tools before deciding.
Do I need to hit every vitamin and mineral target every single day?
Not necessarily. Daily reference values are useful benchmarks, but eating patterns vary. Looking across several days can provide useful context. A tracker should help you see the pattern without implying that one low day automatically means a deficiency or medical problem.
Related MorselMetrics resources
Sources and feature checks
We used official Australian nutrition sources and current official product documentation. Product features were checked on 7 October 2026.
- Food Standards Australia New Zealand: Australian Food Composition Database
- Food Standards Australia New Zealand: AUSNUT 2023
- Food Standards Australia New Zealand: Nutrition information panels
- Eat For Health: Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand
- Easy Diet Diary: official features
- Cronometer: current feature updates
- MyFitnessPal: micronutrient tracking
- MyFitnessPal: Meal Planner availability and workflow
- MyFitnessPal: recipe creation and web importing
- Foodworks Professional: Australian/NZ nutrition analysis features