Filed under: iPhone, App Store, App Review
Scanning your way to a healthier diet with FoodScanner
Calories do count, and if you are among those who keep track of your daily intake and want an easy way to log what you eat, FoodScanner [iTunes link] may be just the iPhone app for you.On a trip to the grocery store or just your fridge, FoodScanner reads the bar code and matches it to a large database of food items. If the app is successful in finding a match, you'll get the product name, amount of calories in a single serving, fat, carbohydrates, and protein content. You can that information to a daily list to keep track of what you are eating, without the pain of doing it all on pencil and paper.
While on a trip to my local Safeway, the bar code recognition worked really well. It just took a second or so to capture the info, and then match it to a database claiming to list over 200,000 food items.
In many cases, the scan returned several items, but it was a simple task to select the correct item by name.
There are a few downsides to the app. A trip to the butcher shop or the fruit stand won't give you any bar codes. You'll have to enter those items manually, but when you do FoodScanner supplies some educated guesses on calories and nutrition. If your grocery store has a metal roof or poor cell phone reception, you're out of luck, unless you want to do all the scanning at home later.
The technology to grab the bar code is from Occipital, which has created some other scanning apps for the iPhone. It looks as if they have improved the software, because scanning seemed quick and more accurate than earlier apps. The app runs on any iPhone with version 3.1 software.
Sometimes the bar code couldn't be linked to anything in the nutrition database, so hopefully the database will continue to grow. The app is on sale for US$0.99 and I don't think it's a risky purchase for people who want to track what they are eating. I would think that getting this level of detail may help you make better choices while you are roaming the food aisles.
Of course, you could always just look at the labels of any foods you buy. The nutrition info is displayed prominently, but you wouldn't have the list to take with you without spending more time writing than you do shopping.
Check the gallery for some more screen shots:
Gallery: FoodScanner
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
emil said 8:13PM on 9-28-2009
I like the idea, but the biggest problem here is that it encourages one to eat more things with bar codes on them, when really you should do the opposite.
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Rob said 11:31PM on 9-28-2009
How many meals do you know how to make that use nothing that comes out of a container? I'm guessing not too many. It would still be helpful to count the number of calories/grams of sodium/etc. one consumes from ingredients. Also, there are plenty of healthy packaged foods: oatmeal, legumes(some of the healthiest and cheapest things you can eat), brown rice, whole wheat bread, tofu, skim milk, yogurt, flour.......
Also, I think it'd be more practical to just accept part of the name of the food, and query the USDA nutrient database; the scanner part is extremely impractical as it will take longer, be less accurate, and not work on things lacking barcodes.
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/
emil said 4:57PM on 9-29-2009
My points isn't that it's all or none, or that all barcodes = unhealthy food, just that when you are deciding on a snack, i think most people will subconsciously favor food that has a bar code so they can use the hallmark feature of this app. I know i would.. and I think on average, most nutritionists would agree that bar-coded food tends to be more processed and include unnecessary fats/sugars/colors/ingredients than, for example, something you might pick up at a farmers market.
mikehild said 8:26PM on 9-28-2009
I don't understand why this is necessary. With the exception of alcoholic beverages, every can, box, or carton of food or drink I see clearly has all the nutrition facts labeled on it. I live in Canada though - perhaps that's something that's mandated by legislation here but not in the US?
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Tadeh said 3:42AM on 9-29-2009
right, but can you mentally add up and keep a total count of every single calory and gram of fat and milligram of cholesterol you've eaten in a day? the point is, it keeps track of everything you've eaten and you can set up a method to lose weight by eating more of healthy things and less of bad things.
umijin said 9:10PM on 9-28-2009
Agree with @emil - if you are eating only food with barcodes, you aren't eating healthy. Nothing unpackaged in the produce aisle (which is most of it) will have barcodes.
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BenM76 said 9:22PM on 9-28-2009
The idea of the app is not to get unknown nutrition info, it's for tracking what you've consumed...
"to keep track of what you are eating, without the pain of doing it all on pencil and paper."
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Tony said 9:25PM on 9-28-2009
I know what I've eaten - and as the commenter above said, if your food has barcodes, you're doing it wrong.
Andy said 9:49PM on 9-28-2009
Hey everyone, a couple of comments:
1. There are not that many purists that only eat natural foods all of the time. We certainly don't want you to eat processed foods, but a tool like this provides awareness for a lot of people who are trying to get on the right track.
2. This tool also lets you track natural foods. You can search from any of 200K+ foods by name as well. Search for any natural food you want, most of them are in the database.
- Andy (DailyBurn)
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Mueller said 9:51PM on 9-28-2009
Tony - You're missing the point, even if you are very careful with your diet you won't always remember everything you've eaten over a long period of time...this can be useful for people just to get a look at their nutrition on a larger scale, or just for newly dieting people to help reinforce changes they are trying to make....Just because you don't want or need an app doesn't mean that other won't enjoy it or find it useful...As for your barcode comment..again you are missing the point..a majority of people eat foods that have barcodes
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thasmiths said 4:11PM on 9-29-2009
I've been using this all weekend and it's great. It helps with the little stuff you often forget to put down when counting calories, like grabbing a glass of milk while watching TV or a quick snack. Plus you can enter manually if you eat something that doesn't have a barcode.
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Noddy said 6:13PM on 9-29-2009
If you're considering getting this app you might also want to consider making use of Daytum.com to track your eating habits or whatever.
I'm not associated with Daytum, I just like their style. Oh and their site has helped me keep track of the total number of prostitutes that are decomposing under my family patio. Thanks Daytum!
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