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Balanza

A free calorie counter in nine languages. Photograph a meal, scan a barcode or type a few words; the AI does the numbers, and the daily target corrects itself from your weight trend. Android and iPhone.

Download on the App StoreDownload on Google Play Ghid de calorii (română) →Таблица с калории (български) →
Balanza - today's screen: calories left and nutrient metrics
Balanza - add a food: describe it, photograph the meal or scan a barcode
Balanza - progress: weight trend and what affected it
Balanza - settings: reminders, intermittent fasting and language

Balanza is a free calorie counter for Android and iPhone in nine languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Greek, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Slovak and Russian (eight on the iPhone, all but Russian). You photograph a meal, type a few words or scan a barcode; the AI works out the calories and the protein; and a daily target keeps correcting itself from the way your weight actually moves, week after week. No account, no subscription, no photo archive.

Seven ways to log a meal

Whatever the path, everything lands on one confirmation screen where the quantity and the values can be fixed, and every correction is remembered in your own food list for next time.

A target that learns from your scale

Most calorie apps give you a number on day one and never look at it again. Balanza starts the same way, with the Mifflin-St Jeor formula, your activity level and the pace you chose. Then, once a week, it compares what you logged with how your weight really changed, estimates your true daily expenditure and moves the target a little. If you under-log by a steady 15 percent, the target absorbs it. Every change is explained in plain words on the progress screen, and guard rails keep the number from jumping.

What the progress screen shows

New in 1.4

New in 1.3

Nine languages, one app

Balanza picks the language of your phone and lets you switch in Settings. The whole app follows: the interface, the day and month names, the first day of the week (Monday), the number format, and the AI itself, which names the foods and the portions in your language. Every translation was written by a person who speaks the language and reviewed a second time before release.

Privacy and sources

There is no sign-up. Each install gets an anonymous id; the diary is tied to that id and to nothing else, and a button in Settings deletes it from the server. Food photos are never stored. The formulas and the databases the app relies on are listed inside it, each with a link to the original publication, together with a clear note that the app is a diary with a calculator and not medical advice.

The story

Balanza is the international edition of Maazan, a Hebrew nutrition app on Google Play and the App Store since 2025. The Hebrew app is right-to-left, knows Israeli products and starts the week on Sunday; Balanza is the same engine rebuilt for left-to-right languages, international food databases and a Monday week, so that friends and family abroad get the same tool in their own language. The two apps share their code and their lessons, and every improvement in one reaches the other.

Links

Technology

Android · Google PlayiPhone · App Store9 languagesMeal recognition from a photoSelf-calibrating targetFasting read from the diaryReact Native + Expo

FAQ

What is Balanza?

Balanza is a free calorie counter and food diary for Android and iPhone. You log what you eat in seven ways, from a photo of the plate, a few words or a barcode to a picture of the nutrition label, a database search, your own foods and saved meals or by hand; the AI works out calories, protein, carbs and fat, and the app keeps a daily target for calories and protein that adjusts itself to the way your weight actually moves.

Which languages does Balanza speak?

Nine: English, Spanish, Portuguese (European), Romanian, Greek, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Slovak and Russian. The app picks the language of your phone and you can change it any time in Settings. On the iPhone all of them are there except Russian. The AI answers in the same language: a meal described in Greek gets a Greek name and Greek portion words.

How does the photo recognition work?

You take a picture of the meal (or pick one from the gallery). The photo is shrunk on the phone, sent to an AI model that lists the foods it sees with an estimated weight for each, and the result comes back as a list you can correct before saving. The photo itself is not stored anywhere: once the answer is back, it is gone.

How accurate are the calorie estimates?

Good enough to see a trend, not a laboratory. A photo estimate is usually within 10 to 20 percent of the real value; a barcode scan of a packaged product is exact because the numbers come from the label; a text entry lands in between. The app is built around this: the daily target corrects itself from your weight, so a consistent bias in the logging is absorbed over the weeks.

What does "the target adjusts itself" mean?

On day one the target comes from a standard formula (Mifflin-St Jeor) plus your activity level and how fast you want to lose or gain. From then on, once a week, the app compares what you logged with how your weight actually changed, estimates your real daily expenditure and moves the target a little in the right direction. Every change is explained in plain words on the progress screen, and there are guard rails so the target never jumps.

Do I need an account?

No. There is no sign-up, no email and no password. Each install gets an anonymous id, and everything you log belongs to that id only. Deleting the app deletes the diary from your phone; the Settings screen also has a button that deletes everything from the server.

Is Balanza free? Are there ads?

Free, with a small banner at the bottom of the diary and the progress screen. There is no subscription and no paid tier: every feature is available to everyone.

Where do the nutrition values come from?

Packaged products come from Open Food Facts and USDA FoodData Central, matched by barcode or name. Fresh food and cooked dishes are estimated by the AI from standard nutrition tables. Anything you correct is remembered in your own food list and used first next time.

What is the weekly overview?

A screen that shows the week as a whole: average calories and protein per day, how many days landed on target, the weight trend and the change in your daily target. It is the place to look when one day went badly and you want to know whether it matters.

How does the intermittent fasting feature work?

Balanza does not run a timer. It reads the diary: the gap between the last entry of one day and the first entry of the next is your fasting window, and the app shows it on the progress screen. If you already fast 14 or 16 hours, you see it without doing anything extra.

Can I save meals I eat often?

Yes. Any set of foods can be saved as a meal with a name of your choice, and logged again with one tap. A saved meal stays linked to the foods in it, so a correction to one food updates the meal too.

Is there an iPhone version?

Yes. Balanza is on the App Store in eight languages, all but Russian, and on Google Play in all nine.

Is Balanza medical advice?

No. It is a diary with a calculator. The formulas and the sources are listed inside the app, with a link to each original publication, and the app says so on the first screen: anyone with a medical condition, pregnant, under 18 or with a history of eating disorders should talk to a doctor or a dietitian before changing what they eat.

What happens to my data?

Your diary, your weight entries and your settings are stored on a server so they survive a phone change through the export feature. They are tied to an anonymous id, never to a name or an email. Food photos are never stored. The full privacy policy is at balanza.pages.dev/privacy.

Who makes Balanza?

Asaf Bendor, an independent developer in Israel, as the international edition of Maazan, a Hebrew nutrition app that has been on Google Play and the App Store since 2025. Balanza is the same app, rebuilt for left-to-right languages, a Monday-first week and metric units in nine languages.

Can Balanza tell a vegan schnitzel from a chicken one?

Yes, since 1.4. Pick a diet during onboarding or in Settings (no restrictions, Orthodox fasting, vegetarian, vegan, keto or low-carb, gluten-free or lactose-free), and photo and text recognition take it into account. When someone who chose vegan photographs a schnitzel, it is logged as a plant-based schnitzel with its own values, not as chicken. The choice can be changed any time in Settings.

Why another app when there is Maazan?

Because Maazan is written in Hebrew, right to left, with Israeli products and a Sunday-first week. Balanza is the same app rebuilt for left-to-right languages, a Monday-first week and international food databases, so someone abroad, or a friend who does not read Hebrew, gets the same tool in their own language.