Automatic macros
How and where the aggregated macros per 100 g of your recipe are calculated.
What it is
The aggregated macros are the recipe's nutrition information, calculated per 100 g of product. AreaCacao recalculates them from the catalog sheets every time you change the composition.
Where you see them
The aggregated macros don't appear inline in the Ingredients table. They show up in two places:
- Editor charts panel → Nutrition sub-tab. Shows the recipe's macro percentages and distribution as you work on it, the calories per serving, and the Nutrition information table per 100 g (EU 1169/2011 reference). On large screens the panel sits on the right; on mobile it moves below the content.
- A4 technical sheet → Nutrition facts section (per 100 g). This is the printable version. See Print a recipe.
On the A4 sheet, the fields that appear are: Energy (kcal), Protein (g), Fat (g), Saturated fat (g), Carbohydrates (g), Sugars (g), Fiber (g), and Salt (g).
How they're calculated
- Each ingredient contributes its macros per 100 g from the catalog.
- AreaCacao converts each ingredient's quantity to grams (see Unit conversion).
- It proportionally sums the macros of every ingredient according to its relative weight in the recipe.
- It divides by the recipe's edible weight (excluding supplies, such as packaging) and shows the result per 100 g.
A sub-recipe contributes its composition per 100 g of formula, the same one its own nutrition panel shows, without applying its yield loss again. The panel breaks that contribution down under Sub-recipe contribution.
Where the kcal come from (and where Atwater is used)
The recipe does not recompute or estimate energy with Atwater factors. It does the same thing it does with every other macro: it takes the kcal declared on each ingredient's sheet, weights them by how much that ingredient contributes, and divides by the edible weight. If a sheet carries the wrong kcal, the recipe inherits that error — there's no later recalculation that fixes it.
If an ingredient's sheet is missing its energy (even if it has the other macros), or a component of a sub-recipe is, the app doesn't estimate it: it adds up only the recorded energy and shows it as a minimum, ≥ N kcal, with the notice "Incomplete energy: energy is missing for … Only recorded energy is added; missing energy is not estimated." If no ingredient has energy, it shows —. The Nutrition panel, the A4 sheet and PDF, and the versions in the history all use this same calculation. One limitation: when a version is saved, the composition of its sub-recipes isn't available, so a sub-recipe that's missing energy doesn't mark that version as incomplete (the panel and the printed sheet do mark it).
Atwater does come in, but at a different point and in a different place: when a new ingredient sheet is enriched, its factors (4 kcal/g for protein and carbohydrate, 9 kcal/g for fat) are used as a consistency check between the sheet's kcal and its macros, before the ingredient enters the catalog.
When it isn't calculated correctly
- If an ingredient has no declared macros in the catalog, it doesn't contribute to the calculation and the total falls below the real value. The panel and the A4 sheet flag it: "Incomplete nutrition information: the composition of … is unknown." Don't use those values for labeling until it's resolved.
- If the unit conversion fails (because density or weight-per-unit is missing), the app flags the issue in the Ingredients tab.
- If your recipe uses an ingredient with a low or extrapolated confidence level, the macros may be indicative only. See Confidence level.
Why it matters
- Comply with EU Regulation 1169/2011 on nutrition labeling.
- Communicate your product's real profile to your HoReCa or retail customer.
- Compare variants of the same recipe.