We’ve just introduced our biggest upgrade to creating recipes ever - Jumpstart. This feature allows you to search for all of the ingredients in a recipe at once. On top of that, it can simultaneously set the quantities and categories of each ingredient (i.e. ½ cup of sliced almonds). This means you can now copy and paste a complete ingredient list to automatically set up a recipe. Jumpstart focuses exclusively on USDA database ingredients so you can be confident that you’re pulling the most reliable nutrition data available.

Jumpstart Intelligent Ingredient Search

Rather than searching for an individual ingredient, there’s now an open text field where you can enter all of a recipe’s ingredient information (or whatever parts you want). You can type this in yourself or copy and paste it from a file. For the best results, we recommend entering one ingredient per line, but our system can parse the data in whatever format you share it.

Remember, you can also provide the amount and units of each ingredient and have that automatically set as well. Gone are the days of converting units or figuring out fractions. You can enter three quarters of a cup, ¾ cup or .75 cups. Whatever format you have, our system will recognize it, find the ingredient, and set the amounts appropriately.

What Shouldn’t You Use It For

There are a couple of things to note about this process. First, as mentioned above, Jumpstart currently only searches USDA database ingredients. So if you want to use custom ingredients, you’ll have to add them separately. The good news is that you still have the ability to search, add, and set amounts individually (if that’s your cup of tea). And that’s exactly what you can do for any ingredients that Jumpstart doesn’t find a match for.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the Jumpstart search can take up to 30 seconds to complete (though it's often much faster). So if you’re just trying to add an individual ingredient it may be quicker to do it the traditional way. That said, if you want to set up an entire recipe, a little patience will save you a lot of time and hassle.

Adding Ingredients To A Recipe

Once the search is complete you’ll see a window of all of the results that allows you to confirm everything before adding to your recipe. Here you’ll see the name of the selected ingredient alongside your search term. Comparing the search to the selection helps you ensure the correct ingredient was chosen. If you need to see more details you can always click on an ingredient to view its nutrition and any additional reference information.

Each ingredient has a checkbox that allows you to select whether or not you want to add it to your recipe. So if an erroneous ingredient was added, or you want to replace it with something else, you can just uncheck the box for that ingredient. Further, you can adjust the amount and units of any ingredient before adding them to your recipe. When you’re happy with the results, you can add everything to your recipe with one click.

Get Nutrition Facts Fast

Most food entrepreneurs don’t have any experience with nutrition labeling until it becomes a requirement. We know that taking this task on yourself can seem intimidating at first. We’ve heard a lot of people say they just want someone else to handle it. Unfortunately, that often costs a lot more money and time - two things food businesses can’t spare. Jumpstart is perfect for the first time nutrition label maker because it takes so much of the uncertainty out of the process and eliminates any learning curve. Just paste your recipe and immediately find the most reliable ingredient data available already set to the amounts you need. This new functionality opens the door for many use-cases that previously may have seen too tedious for a robust tool like ReciPal - personal nutrition tracking, blog/online recipe stats, restaurant R & D, etc.

Jumpstart is a huge step forward and it’s just getting started! We’d love to hear how it’s working for you and any feedback to continue improving it.