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Food Carb Counting Tech

MisterMints

Well-Known Member
Messages
49
Location
United Kingdom
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Yes, not directly linked to food as this isn't a recipe or ideas for dinner, but thought some of you may find this useful.

FoodVisor is an app that allows you to take a picture of what you're going to eat and it uses AI to determine what it is and how many carbs are in it (as well as other nutritional information). Its still fairly early days with it, so the app is by no means perfect, but it'll only get better the more people use it.

I thought it may interest some of you to give it a go and see if it works for you.

Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.foodvisor.foodvisor

iOS:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1064020872

(I'm not the developer of this app or have anything to do with it beyond being a user who happens to think its quite nifty. But as above, it isn't perfect!)
 
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I'm the weirdo on the supermarket aisle picking things up and looking at the nutritional value on the back before putting them back with a look of disgust, but have done that for as long as the labels have been there, but then I do struggle with apps , sounds interesting though!
 
The AI would have to be very intelligent to distinguish between a low carb roll and a normal one.
 
Mr_Pot said:
The AI would have to be very intelligent to distinguish between a low carb roll and a normal one.
Click to expand...

I agree, I bet it wouldn’t guess the carb count of this carrot cake as 5.2g per slice!
 
Mr_Pot said:
The AI would have to be very intelligent to distinguish between a low carb roll and a normal one.
Click to expand...
It doesn't quite work like that unfortunately, however much I wish it did!

It's more like it seeing you have a roll on your plate, and from the dimensions of the roll in the picture it works out it is approximately 100g in weight and that it knows 100g of roll typically contains 50g of carbs (or whatever it actually is!). It may then further distinguish to work out whether it is white or wholemeal and adjust accordingly.

It does get stumped quite a bit though. It can perhaps work out it is looking at bread, but it wants your help to work out what kind of bread. I scanned Tesco Olive bread the other day and it didn't know what it was, but telling it it was looking at olive bread it could work out the size and carb content.

As I say, not perfect, but its a good idea and for lots of items (mainly things like fruit and veg) it does a great job of working things out.
 
That's what I do without an app.
 
Mr_Pot said:
That's what I do without an app.
Click to expand...
So it's not for you then, and that's fine. But for those that perhaps don't know how to carb count, or struggle to get the numbers right, or want to know what's on that plate at the restaurant then it may just work for them, and if it does, then great!
 
@MisterMints

How does it know the scale of the food item? Do you include something of a known size for comparison? Of do you tell it the plate size?
 

Is there a pc version? I'd like to get its opinion on one of my platefuls on the T1 food thread as I reckon they'd confuse it!
 
I wonder if the AI can tell the difference between a "spud lite" lower carb spud against a normal heavy carb spud.
 
I found it a little hard going but I suspect it is early days. I will look in from time to time, but from a practical point of view, it is easier to estimate to work out the carbs in my head.
 
xfieldok said:
I found it a little hard going but I suspect it is early days. I will look in from time to time, but from a practical point of view, it is easier to estimate to work out the carbs in my head.
Click to expand...
For me this is the natural evolution of the Carbs and Cals book DSNs overturn recommend, or looking things up on the internet. It may not be perfect just yet, but it will get there, and hopefully the more people that use it the larger it's library of food gets and crucially, it's ability to recognise that food.

Of course, the app isn't designed by diabetics or just for diabetics so there are lots of other people that will get a variety of uses for it
 
My problem is this . Take an app like my fitness or carbs and Cal's, enter something like almond flour. There are scores of options, you have to search forever to find your brand. You don't know when it was entered so you should really check the macros against your packet. Very time consuming.

Not tried the barcode scanner.
 
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