voort

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Voort data sources and credits

Voort uses open data and our own work. This page names every source, its licence and what we changed. Food and exercise values are guides. Real foods and real bodies vary.

Last updated: [DATE OF PUBLICATION]

Food data

USDA FoodData Central

Food composition data from the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/.

Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication). We credit it anyway. We map USDA names and portions to the way South Africans describe food.

Open Food Facts

Packaged food data from Open Food Facts, https://world.openfoodfacts.org/, a project run by its volunteer community.

Licence: the database is available under the Open Database Licence (ODbL) 1.0, https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/. Individual contents are under the Database Contents Licence, https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/dbcl/1-0/. Product photos on Open Food Facts are under CC BY-SA, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.

What we do: we look up a product when you scan or search for it and keep a copy for a short time so Voort stays fast. We refresh the copy after 30 days and delete it 180 days after anyone last used it. If you spot a mistake in a packaged food, the best fix is at Open Food Facts, where anyone can edit.

UK Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset (CoFID)

McCance and Widdowson's Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset, published by the UK government (formerly Public Health England).

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/.

We use it for foods that are common in South African kitchens and thin in the other sources.

Voort estimates for South African dishes

For dishes such as pap and stew, vetkoek, bunny chow, braai plates and biltong, and for standard South African portions, we write our own estimates and mark them "Voort estimate". We build them from recipe analysis and typical home and street portions. They carry a range because recipes and portions differ a lot. If you think one is off, tell us at [SUPPORT EMAIL].

Photo estimates

When you use photo logging, AI suggests the food and the amount and gives a calorie range. A person checks it, and that person is you. Nothing is saved until you confirm it. These estimates are guesses and can be wrong.

Exercise data

Voort-written instructions

Our exercise instructions, seated and adaptive variations, coaching cues and workout programmes are written by Heferon and belong to Heferon (Pty) Ltd. You may use them inside Voort for yourself.

wger

Exercise names, muscle groups, equipment and similar facts come from the wger project, https://wger.de/. wger texts are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Where Voort adapts wger text, we credit wger, say that we changed it, and share our adapted text under the same licence. Any picture we show from another source carries its own credit next to it.

Compendium of Physical Activities

We use activity energy values (METs) from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities to estimate the energy cost of activities. Citation: Herrmann SD, Willis EA, Ainsworth BE, et al. 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: a third update of the energy costs of human activities. Journal of Sport and Health Science 2024;13(1):6-12. https://pacompendium.com/.

Safety and screening sources

  • Readiness questions: PAR-Q+, the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire for Everyone, copyright 2025 PAR-Q+ Collaboration, https://eparmedx.com/. [PERMISSION REFERENCE PENDING]
  • Resting energy: the Mifflin-St Jeor equation (Mifflin MD et al., American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1990;51:241-247).
  • Meal ideas follow the South African food-based dietary guidelines (Department of Health, 2012).
  • Physical activity guidance follows the World Health Organization guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour (2020).

Tell us about a mistake

Write to [SUPPORT EMAIL]. We fix errors in our own estimates and pass errors in open data to the project that owns it.

Version 0.1.0