Understanding Search Rankings

Platebreaker ranks recipes using a score from -10 to +10 that tells you how well a recipe fits your current nutritional needs.

What the Scores Mean

High Scores (7 to 10)

Recipes with high scores:

Fill your biggest nutritional gaps
Provide nutrients you’re running low on
Avoid nutrients you’re already getting enough of
Help you reach multiple nutrient targets efficiently

Medium Scores (3 to 6)

These recipes:

Contribute to some of your nutrient targets
May excel in a few nutrients but not across the board

Low Scores (-2 to 2)

Recipes with low scores:

Provide nutrients you’ve already met or exceeded today
May not significantly help with your current gaps

Negative Scores (-10 to -3)

Negative scores indicate recipes that:

Contain high amounts of nutrients with upper limits (sodium, saturated fat, added sugars)
May push you over upper limits for certain nutrients

How Rankings Automatically Adjust

Recipe rankings are dynamic—they change throughout the day based on your current nutritional status.

Meals Already in Your Planner

When you add a meal to your planner:

Platebreaker calculates the nutrients in that meal
Updates your nutritional status for that day
Instantly recalculates rankings for all other recipes

Example: If you add a salmon recipe high in Omega 3 to lunch, recipes rich in Omega 3 will drop in ranking for the rest of the day because you’ve already met much of that target.

Stored Nutrients from Previous Meals

Your body can store certain nutrients for future use. Platebreaker tracks this:

Water-soluble vitamins (B vitamins, vitamin C): Not stored significantly—need daily replenishment
Fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K): Stored for multiple days
Minerals (calcium, iron, etc.): Stored for multiple days
Protein and amino acids: Not stored—need daily intake

If you exceeded your vitamin A target yesterday, Platebreaker remembers this stored amount and adjusts today’s rankings accordingly—you’ll see lower scores for vitamin A-rich recipes today.

Learn more about nutrient cycles and storage

What About Missed Meals?

If you ate a meal but forgot to log it, your rankings will assume you didn’t get those nutrients.

To get accurate rankings: Add the missed meal before your next search. It doesn’t matter when you log it—just add it before searching so Platebreaker can account for those nutrients.

For meals from past days: The default storage cycle is 7 days. If you’re logging a missed meal from more than 7 days ago (or beyond your custom storage period), most of those nutrients won’t carry forward since they would have already been accounted for in previous days’ targets. Adding very old meals makes less difference to current rankings.

How to add: Search for and add a recipe that resembles the meal you had.

In addition to the automatic ranking, you can refine your search:

Basic Filters

Meal type: Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, desserts
Cuisine: Italian, Mexican, Asian, Mediterranean, etc.
Dietary restrictions: Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free
Cooking time: Quick (< 30 min), medium (30-60 min), long (> 60 min)

Nutrient Filters (Coming Soon)

Search for recipes high in specific nutrients (e.g., “high iron”)
Minimize certain nutrients (e.g., “low sodium”)
Set custom nutrient ranges