Time to throw away your scales?

Options
Chrysalid2014
Chrysalid2014 Posts: 1,038 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Anyone tried this?

Im2Calories, Google's 'smart' food diary, aims to do something quite different from many other calorie-counting apps on the market. Rather than asking users to type the foods they have consumed into a spreadsheet or scan an item's bar code, Im2Calories analyses photos of meal a user has taken and then attempts to estimate that meal's calorie count. Currently, Google admits that its estimates can be inaccurate. Kevin Murphy, a researcher at Google, told Popular Science: "Okay fine, maybe we get the calories off by 20 per cent (but) it doesn't matter." According to Murphy the system will become more accurate as users begin uploading their photos and Google compiles a database of different types of food from all over the world.
«13

Replies

  • JPW1990
    JPW1990 Posts: 2,424 Member
    Options
    20% of a tomato, no big deal
    20% of a bacon explosion, yeah, I'll pass
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    edited June 2015
    Options
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    20% of a tomato, no big deal
    20% of a bacon explosion, yeah, I'll pass

    Yeah, that. Avocado, peanut butter, butter, olive oil? No thank you.

    Then there's the issue of mixed ingredient dishes. Take a picture of a salad. How can they tell how much oil is in it? How much oil you used when you made a pot of chili? What kind of meat you used in the chili? Soup? It can vary so much--something could look the same, but be so different in calorie count depending on how you made it. Or something like meatloaf?

  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
    edited June 2015
    Options
    Erm it really does matter!
  • JPW1990
    JPW1990 Posts: 2,424 Member
    Options
    I guess with that dedication to accuracy, we should just be thankful the guy doesn't work on their automotive team.
  • weavingtheweb
    weavingtheweb Posts: 135 Member
    Options
    I saw an ad here on MFP a while ago for SmartPlate that does exactly the same.
    There's also a cup that is supposed to be able to track what you drink and how many cals it has.

    I think I'll stick to using my scale...
  • FoxyLifter
    FoxyLifter Posts: 965 Member
    Options
    Ridiculous.
  • barbecuesauce
    barbecuesauce Posts: 1,779 Member
    edited June 2015
    Options
    Is that one of those things where the distance of the camera to the plate matters? I suspect it does. Let me get up on the stepladder and photograph this cheesecake. I need to know whether I've done enough housework to justify eating it.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
    Options
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    20% of a tomato, no big deal
    20% of a bacon explosion, yeah, I'll pass

    Which is my entire dinner tonight, as we're having BLTs
  • DeguelloTex
    DeguelloTex Posts: 6,652 Member
    Options
    How does it know what's in my pasta sauce or meat loaf?
  • liftlovelunge
    liftlovelunge Posts: 23 Member
    Options
    I think that taking a photo of every snack/meal would be more of a hassle than logging, but to each their own!
  • 47Jacqueline
    47Jacqueline Posts: 6,993 Member
    Options
    How can they tell if it's turkey or beef chili?
  • FitForL1fe
    FitForL1fe Posts: 1,872 Member
    Options
    lol
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
    Options
    LOL....how is google going to analyze a picture of my green chile stew and give me something even remotely accurate for a calorie count...a picture doesn't actually show how much oil I cooked with, how many potatoes I used, etc.

  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
    Options
    It doesn't sound useful for weight loss at all.
    I suppose that might work okay for people who only eat restaurant meals or packaged meals that are made and presented the same way every time but how would that work at all for homemade stuff? I forseee that you will have to enter your recipe and a photo and save it to their database... so much like MFP but with an extra annoying step.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,943 Member
    Options
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    20% of a tomato, no big deal
    20% of a bacon explosion, yeah, I'll pass

    This.

  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    edited June 2015
    Options
    So how would it guess between a high fat and low fat version of same dish like say cheesecake?

    recipe-image-legacy-id--1028453_10.jpg

    Cheesecake.jpg


  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    Options
    I predict the accuracy being like the Microsoft thing that judges age by a picture of your face. (I think it was Microsoft anyway)
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    Options
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    I predict the accuracy being like the Microsoft thing that judges age by a picture of your face. (I think it was Microsoft anyway)

    Oh, I liked that thing. I used it on a before picture of me and got a young age, and then did it again with my current picture. Well, I think I look older now (no biggie to me, whatever)... hah! I had me even younger. It has me almost 30 years younger than I really am.

    Could you imagine that amount of inaccuracy on calories?
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,943 Member
    edited June 2015
    Options
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    So how would it guess between a high fat and low fat version of same dish like say cheesecake?

    recipe-image-legacy-id--1028453_10.jpg

    Cheesecake.jpg


    Oh, those are so easy to estimate!

    The entire cheesecake has no more than 1,000 calories, and just a slice has 25 calories!

    Doesn't matter if one is high or low fat....ALL cheesecake is super duper low in calories.

    >:)o:)

Categories