What gets stored on your device

There are no advertising cookies here, and no social pixels that follow you around the web. We do use Google Analytics to count page visits (measurement ID G-1XF3EVT1F8). That can set cookies Google uses to tell one browser from another. It is not used to show you ads on this site.

What we do use is your browser's own storage, which is where your pantry, plans, saved recipes and cooking journal actually live. That is not tracking; it is how the site remembers your kitchen without us holding a copy of it.

A cookie is a small file your browser sends back to the site with every request. We use one only to keep you signed in.

Local storage is a bigger box your browser keeps on your device and does not send anywhere. Almost everything below is local storage, which is why your pantry stays on your phone rather than on our servers.

These cannot be turned off, because without them the feature simply stops working.

• Sign-in cookie. Set by our sign-in system (Auth.js) when you log in, so you stay logged in as you move between pages. It also sets short-lived cookies that protect the login form from being abused. If you never create an account, you never get one.
• Your pantry, fridge scans, shopping list, Chef conversations, saved recipe adaptations and food preferences. Stored locally under iwsf:intel:v1.
• Cooking journal, passport stamps, achievements, profile and notification settings. Stored locally under iwsf:journey:v1. If you are signed in, the key includes your email address so two people sharing a device do not see each other's journal.
• Meal plans. Stored locally under iwsf:plan:v1.
• Quiz progress — iwsf:quiz:v1 — including which recipes you have practised.
• Saved recipes, recently viewed recipes, shopping items and measurement units — iwsf:saved, iwsf:recent, iwsf:shopping, iwsf:units.
• Light or dark theme — iwsf:theme, read before the page paints so the site does not flash white at you.
• Your answer to the consent banner — iwsf:commerce:v2. We have to remember your choice somewhere, so we keep it on your device rather than in an account.

Google Analytics runs on every page and records that a page was opened — the path, a rough location, the device type and the site that sent you here. That is how we know whether people are finding the recipes.

The banner asks a separate question: may we also count how features get used? Say yes and the site sends events like “recipe viewed” or “cook started” to our own database, so we can see what to fix next. Say no — or close the banner without choosing — and those feature events are not sent. This is enforced in the code, not just promised: the tracking function checks your stored answer before every send and stops if it is missing. Those first-party events stay in our database and are not used to build an advertising profile of you.

You can change your answer any time in Settings. Turning it off stops future events immediately.

Some recipe photos are served directly from TheMealDB, the database a lot of our recipe data came from. Loading an image means your browser contacts that server, and it can see your IP address and browser type, the same as with any image on the web. It does not set a cookie for us and we do not receive anything back from it. See copyright and takedowns for how the catalogue is put together.

The quickest way is the “Your data” panel in Settings: export your cooking journal as a file first if you want to keep it, then delete the local data. You can also clear site data for iwantsomefood.com in your browser settings, which removes the sign-in cookie too.

Be aware of the trade-off: because this data lives on your device and nowhere else, clearing it deletes your pantry, plans, journal and progress permanently. We cannot restore it, because we never had it.

If you want to know what a particular stored item does, email hello@iwantsomefood.com and we will explain it. The wider picture is in our privacy policy.