It’s that time of the year again, the countdown to summer begins. We want to shed the layers of winter cosy clothes and show off a beach body, even if we aren’t exactly planning on going on a lavish holiday this year. Some of us have another layer to shed: a few extra kilograms we all gained during the winter lockdowns. This is when we start to look closer at the nutritional values in recipes.
The audience for recipes and weight loss tips is substantial. Therefore, for recipe blogs and platforms this is a golden opportunity to bring new users onboard. It is important, however, not to focus only on their motivations. Above all, define their limitations when it comes to searching for healthy recipe inspirations. If your plan to boost recipe engagement this season was to implement calorie and macronutrients data to your recipes, here is what you need to know.
Fitness level
MyMenu conducted a research among the recipe platform users who declare the need to lose weight. A majority of the interviewees declare to be a beginner in the topics of fitness and nutrition. 47,7% marked their level of physical activity as low, limited to only a brief occasional walk. 29,9% declared some form of light exercise a couple of times a week. A completely sporty lifestyle was indicated by 12,82%.
Nutritional values: calories and macronutrients
Furthermore, the research proved that the users don’t know their recommended calorie intake and macronutrients split (carbohydrates, protein and fat). For a question “How many calories do you need in your diet?” an 88,2% responded that they didn’t know that number and wanted to have it calculated for them. The same lack of knowledge was apparent even more with the same question about macros proportions in the diet. This time a vast majority of respondents (95,5%) answered they didn’t know the numbers and wanted to be given suggestions. This can show us that people who are looking at recipes and meal plans designed for weight loss need a more complex experience from a recipe platform in order to incorporate the recipes into their diet.
Engage your public
If you are planning on adding calories and macronutrients to your recipes you need to be smart about it. Providing bare numbers without any point of reference has no use to your audience. Instead, focus on new features that will actually engage your public and make your content relevant.
A feature we recommend is to introduce some visual indicators of the general nutrition score for the recipe. Another option to consider is a weekly planner calculator. It’s a tool we designed to create a custom weekly meal plan out of the recipes from your platform.
How does it work?
First, with a simple set of questions we can determine an accurate calorie intake and macros split for the user. The planner can calculate the numbers for them, so that they don’t have to take no more action. Then they can select and add recipes to their plan, having in mind the numbers we provided. This allows them to see for each recipe they choose, what percentage of a recommended calorie and macronutrients count it constitutes.
For the recipes already existing on your page we are able to calculate those values. More importantly, we can provide you with a complete form to add new recipes and edit them. As a result you can be in full control of your content. The calculator and planner feature have a proven record track: based on the results from various platforms where we implemented this solution, we were able to achieve a 4x increase in the recipe engagement.
Contact us if you want to boost your website engagement by adding nutritional values to your recipes!
