Buyer’s guide
Most meal planning platforms are built for the United States. This guide covers the five things that actually change when you practise in Australia — the food composition database, the energy unit, the reference standards, the privacy obligations and the currency — and how to check a tool against each.
Meal planning software is only suited to Australian dietetic practice if it analyses food against FSANZ Australian food composition data rather than the USDA database, reports energy in kilojoules, calculates requirements against the Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand using the Schofield equation, handles patient health information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles, and bills in AUD. A platform that fails the first two will produce plans whose numbers do not match the labels your patient reads in the supermarket.
Five criteria, in the order they tend to matter. Each one is worth putting to any vendor you are evaluating, including us.
The nutrient database behind every calculation.
Most global platforms are built on the USDA database. American products, fortification rules and portion conventions do not match what your patient buys at Coles or Woolworths. Australian food composition data is published by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) in AUSNUT and the Australian Food Composition Database.
Cladiv generates meal plans and nutritional analysis from FSANZ-sourced food composition data.
The energy unit shown on plans, reports and patient handouts.
Australian food labelling law requires kilojoules, and the Nutrient Reference Values are published in kJ. A tool that only shows kcal forces you to convert on every plan and hands patients a document that will not match any label they read.
Cladiv reports energy in the units Australian practice uses.
The reference standards behind requirement calculations.
The Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand are the accepted standard here, and Schofield is the predictive equation used by Eat For Health for estimated energy requirements. Tools built for the US market typically default to Mifflin-St Jeor and the American DRIs.
Cladiv includes a clinical calculator for energy, protein and macro targets, and a free Schofield calculator is available on this site.
How patient health information is stored and controlled.
Health information is sensitive information under the Privacy Act 1988. Whichever tool you choose, you remain accountable for it — so access controls, audit trails and the ability to get your records out matter more than a feature list.
Cladiv uses encrypted data storage, anonymised patient IDs, role-based access controls and audit trails, and lets you export your data and patient reports at any time.
What you actually pay, and when you can get help.
USD subscriptions move with the exchange rate and are hard to budget or claim. Support built around a US working day means a question raised on Monday morning in Sydney is answered on Tuesday.
Cladiv is priced in AUD, with a free tier and no lock-in contract.
Take this to a demo. Ask the vendor to show you each one rather than confirm it.
Which food composition database sits behind the nutrient analysis, and what year is it from?
Can a plan be exported showing kilojoules, and do the values match an Australian food label?
Which predictive equation does the energy calculator use, and can I change the activity factor?
Where is patient data stored, who can access it, and is access logged?
Can I export every patient record if I stop paying?
Is the subscription billed in AUD, and is there a plan I can trial with real patients?
Can I add my own recipes, and can exports carry my practice branding?
The right choice depends on whether the tool is built for Australian practice. The five things to check are: that the nutrient database is FSANZ-sourced rather than USDA, that energy is reported in kilojoules, that requirement calculations use the Eat For Health NRVs and the Schofield equation, that patient data handling meets the Australian Privacy Principles, and that pricing is in AUD. Many well-known platforms are built for the US or European market and meet few of these.
Food composition databases are country-specific because food supplies are. Fortification rules, product formulations and standard serving sizes differ between Australia and the United States, so a plan analysed against the USDA database can report different energy and nutrient values than the same foods bought in Australia. FSANZ publishes the Australian Food Composition Database for this reason.
Kilojoules. Australian food labelling requires energy to be declared in kilojoules, and the Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand are published in kJ. Calories are widely understood by patients, so plans commonly show both, but kilojoules are the working unit.
The Schofield equation is used by Eat For Health to estimate basal metabolic rate, which is then multiplied by a physical activity level to give an estimated energy requirement. It is weight and age-band based and remains the standard reference in Australian practice.
Cladiv has a free plan that includes 5 meal plans per month, 600+ curated recipes, patient assessment summaries and full-week meal plan generation, with no credit card required. Free tiers across the market generally limit the number of plans or clients rather than the clinical features.
Meal planning software supports that work but does not replace it. The plan, nutritional analysis and shopping list can be generated and exported as documentation, while the clinical reasoning, goal setting and reporting against a participant plan remain the dietitian’s.
The free plan includes five meal plans a month and the full recipe library, so you can check the numbers against your own caseload before deciding anything.