Cal AI was one of the first AI calorie tracking apps. Cal AI was removed from the App Store on April 15, a month after being acquired by MyFitnessPal. Millions of users who’d built a habit of snapping a photo of their food and getting a calorie estimate back are now looking for a Cal AI alternative.

The timing is actually a good moment to rethink what you want from a nutrition app. While calorie counting is useful, calories alone aren’t the most important nutrients for health. Fiber, saturated fat, sodium, and potassium are even more important. These key nutrients drive your cholesterol and blood pressure, biomarkers that cardiologists recommend tracking for heart health.

Empirical Health is a Cal AI alternative that tracks not just calories, but also the nutrients cardiologists care mos tabout. Empirical is free, runs on iPhone, Android, and Apple Watch, and connects your meals to your actual blood work if you want to go further.

A free Cal AI alternative

Empirical Health’s nutrition tracking works the same way Cal AI did: point your camera at a meal, and AI identifies the ingredients and estimates the nutrition facts. You get calories, protein, fat, and carbs in seconds. Basic calorie tracking is free in Empirical.

Photo-based calorie tracking in Empirical Health.

A few things Empirical does:

• Type a description instead of snapping a photo. “Turkey sandwich with swiss on rye” works when you forgot to take a picture.
• Easily log supplements. Psyllium husk, fiber gummies, fish oil, and so on.
• Edit the AI’s guesses. If the app misidentifies an ingredient, you correct it in a tap.

If you want more detail on how the vision model works, we’ve written about it in how to use AI to calculate nutrition facts.

Cal AI alternative for Android

Cal AI was initially iPhone (although there’s now an Android version). Empirical Health is a native Android app with the full feature set: photo logging, nutrition breakdowns, meal recommendations, and customized goals. You can download Empirical Health for Android from the Google Play Store.

Beyond calories: fiber, saturated fat, potassium, sodium

Most calorie trackers stop at calories and macros. That’s fine for weight management, but it misses the nutrients that drive long-term heart health. Empirical Health tracks key heart health nutrients too:

• Fiber. Each 8g/day increase is associated with a 5-27% lower risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
• Saturated fat. The single biggest dietary driver of LDL cholesterol and ApoB.
• Sodium and potassium. The ratio between them is what actually moves blood pressure, not sodium alone.
• Sugar and glycemic load. Relevant for blood sugar, triglycerides, and inflammation.

You still get calories and macros. You just also get the numbers that show up on a blood pressure cuff or a lipid panel five years from now.

Nutrition statistics, using AI-based food analysis. Includes calories and other nutrients, like fiber, saturated fat, potassium, and sodium.

Find healthy meals near you

Tracking is only half the job. The harder part is deciding what to eat next. Empirical Health’s meal guidance scans restaurant menus near you and suggests dishes that fit your nutrient targets.

If your goal is lower cholesterol, it surfaces high-fiber, low-saturated-fat options. If it’s blood pressure, it prioritizes low-sodium and high-potassium picks. The recommendations are tied to your actual numbers, not a generic “heart healthy” label.

Find healthy meals near you. Source: Empirical Health.

Customized goals, not generic targets

Every user gets different daily targets. If you’re trying to lower ApoB, your fiber target goes up and your saturated fat cap goes down. If you’re managing blood pressure, your sodium ceiling tightens and potassium rises.

You can set goals manually or let the app recommend them based on what you’re working on. The targets show up everywhere you log food, so you can see whether today’s meals are actually moving you in the right direction.

AI calorie tracking is free, blood testing is paid

Basic calorie and nutrition tracking is free, including photo-based meal logging; calorie, macro, and heart-health nutrient tracking; customized daily goals, and integration with Apple Watch and other wearables.

Premium upgrades include at-home blood testing (ApoB, Lp(a), hs-CRP, and 100+ other biomarkers). You can read more about the Comprehensive Heart Health Panel if you want the full picture of what’s driving your numbers.

If all you need is a calorie tracker to replace Cal AI, you never have to pay. If you want to connect what you eat to what’s actually in your blood, the premium path is there when you’re ready.

How to switch from Cal AI to Empirical Health

Download Empirical Health for iPhone or Android. Snap a photo of your next meal and set a goal. The switch takes about five minutes.