Terms of Service
Balance by HomeCooks · Last updated: 30 April 2026
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the Balance mobile application ("the app", "Balance") operated by Joshua Magidson ("we", "us"). By creating an account or using Balance, you agree to these Terms.
1. Eligibility
You must be at least 16 years old to use Balance. By creating an account, you confirm that you meet this age requirement.
Balance is currently available on an invite-only basis. You need a valid invite code to create an account.
2. Your Account
- You may create only one account per person.
- You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials.
- You must provide accurate information when creating your account.
- You must not share your account with others or allow others to access your account.
- If you suspect unauthorised access to your account, contact us immediately at joshmagidson@gmail.com.
⚠ Important: Nutrition & Health Disclaimer
Balance is a food tracking tool — not medical advice.
- Nutritional data in Balance is sourced from government databases, manufacturer information, and third-party sources. While we strive for accuracy, all nutrition values are approximate and may contain errors.
- AI-powered food recognition (photo and text input) uses best-effort matching and may be inaccurate. Always review and confirm AI suggestions before logging.
- Calorie and macro targets are general guidance based on the information you provide. They are not personalised medical or dietary advice.
- Balance does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or medical condition.
- Always consult a qualified healthcare professional or registered dietitian before making significant changes to your diet, especially if you have a medical condition, food allergies, eating disorder, or are pregnant or breastfeeding.
- Do not rely solely on Balance for managing medical dietary requirements (e.g. diabetes, coeliac disease, food allergies).
3. AI Features
Balance uses artificial intelligence (powered by OpenAI) to help identify foods from photos and text descriptions. By using these features, you acknowledge that:
- AI recognition is best-effort and may produce incorrect results. You should always review suggestions before confirming.
- Photos you submit for recognition are sent to OpenAI's API via our secure server-side proxy for processing. Photos are processed transiently and are not used for training AI models.
- AI features are subject to daily usage limits (currently 50 recognitions per day).
- AI features may be modified, improved, or temporarily unavailable.
4. User Contributions
Balance allows you to contribute to the shared food database by:
- Adding new foods (packaged products, generic foods)
- Submitting corrections to existing food entries
- Suggesting serving sizes
- Linking barcodes to products
When you make a contribution:
- Your contribution may be reviewed by our team before being added to the database.
- Approved contributions become part of the shared database and are available to all users.
- You grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual licence to use, modify, and distribute your contributions as part of the Balance food database.
- You retain your personal data rights — deleting your account removes your personal data, but anonymised contributions to the food database may remain.
5. Intellectual Property
- Balance, including its design, code, branding, and food database, is owned by Joshua Magidson. All rights reserved.
- You retain all rights to your personal data (food logs, photos, health profile).
- You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, or create derivative works based on Balance or any part of it without our written permission.
6. Acceptable Use & Community Standards
You agree not to:
- Scrape, crawl, or automatically extract data from Balance
- Attempt to access other users' data or accounts
- Submit intentionally false or misleading food data
- Use Balance to harass, abuse, or harm other users
- Post offensive, harmful, or inappropriate content through social features
- Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of the app
- Use Balance for any purpose that violates applicable law
- Create multiple accounts or share invite codes publicly
Balance has zero tolerance for objectionable content or abusive behaviour. Our full Community Guidelines describe what is and isn't acceptable on the platform. By using Balance, you agree to follow these guidelines.
You can report posts, comments, or users that violate our guidelines, and block users who you do not wish to interact with. We review all reports within 24 hours and may remove content or suspend accounts as appropriate.
7. Termination
- By you: You can delete your account at any time via Settings → Delete Account. This permanently deletes all your data. See our Privacy Policy for details.
- By us: We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms or engage in abusive behaviour. We will attempt to notify you by email before or at the time of termination, unless immediate action is required.
8. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law:
- Balance is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied.
- We do not warrant that nutrition data is complete, accurate, or up to date.
- We do not warrant that AI recognition will be correct or reliable.
- We are not liable for any health outcomes, dietary decisions, or medical consequences resulting from your use of Balance.
- Our total liability for any claim arising from your use of Balance is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim (currently £0 as Balance is free).
- We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited by English law.
9. Third-Party Services
Balance integrates with third-party services (Supabase, OpenAI, Sentry, Expo, Apple HealthKit) as described in our Privacy Policy. These services have their own terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for the availability, accuracy, or practices of third-party services.
10. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make significant changes, we will notify you through the app. The "Last updated" date at the top reflects the most recent revision. Your continued use of Balance after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.
11. Governing Law
These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes arising from these Terms or your use of Balance shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
12. Contact