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Restaurant chain nutrition

Calories and macros for restaurant chain menu items, read from each chain's own published nutrition page or, where a chain's pages bar automated readers, from a nutrition database named on the chain's page, and refreshed automatically.

How this database is built

A nightly job reads the nutrition page each chain publishes for itself. It checks that chain's robots.txt first and does not fetch anything the file disallows. It sends a conditional request, so a menu that has not changed costs the chain a single 304 response and nothing more. Where a chain's own pages bar automated readers, the job reads the chain's listing in a public nutrition database instead, under that site's robots.txt, and the chain's page names the database.

Every value stored here keeps the exact URL it was read from and the moment it was read, and both appear on the item page. Figures come from the chain itself unless the chain's page names a nutrition database as their source; nothing is estimated, and no value is published without that trail.

Restaurant portions vary between countries, franchises and even between two of the same sandwich. Treat these as the chain's stated averages, which is exactly what they are.

Nutrition figures are published by each restaurant for its own products; for a chain whose pages bar automated readers they come from a nutrition database, named on the chain's page. TempoLife reproduces them with attribution and links back to the source. Where a chain has not published figures, no page is created for it.

Frequently asked questions