Startup trends I : Nutrition & Diet I
Nutrition and diet are important for our daily lives and most of us at some point have tried to have a healthy diet and/or lose weight. Some people try to count and cut down calories to lose weight, other follow healthy recipes to get good nutrition from food. Doing it is not easy and to be honest the results are not always accurate because of many other factors that influence weight loss/gain and nutrition. Examples of those factors are age, current weight, metabolism, genetics, lifestyle activity level to name a few. In addition, we often eat outside and it is hard to know detailed nutrition information of food we eat in restaurants. Nevertheless, I still believe that despite all of the difficulties, we should try to be healthy and eat well.
Thankfully, the emergence of new technologies and startups can help us to improve our lives for the better. There is a lot to discuss about nutrition and startup trends, like calorie counting and weight management, diet types and increase of plant based meat substitutes, rise of personalized nutrition, or even how supplements evolve. This will be a series of blogs, starting with calorie counting.
In general, one of the most important factors in terms of losing or gaining weight is the difference between energy in (calories consumed) and energy out (calories burned). As a result, in theory, calorie deficit can lead to weight loss. However, there are two main challenges people face trying to count calories: accuracy and input. Estimating the number of calories we consume daily as well as recording it is challenging. There are two companies with interesting answers to help us with calorie counting and tracking: Calorie Mama and Smart Plate.
Calorie Mama
Calorie Mama is an app for Android and iOS that uses powered by deep learning image recognition to provide instant food nutrition information. All you need to do is take a picture of the food and the app does the rest. Alternatively there is also a fun demo on their website which allows you to upload a picture of food and get an estimation right away.
Have a try yourself at: https://www.caloriemama.ai/api
In addition, Calorie Mama provides a variety of other features as well. Goal based daily calorie intake and monthly progress are both tracked to help us with managing weight. There are also meal plans and recipes for different diet types, daily water intake, or even workout plans to stay fit.
I really believe that it can be a good starting point option for people who are interested in nutrition because there is the convenience of simply taking pictures, alongside minimal manual input. Although, keep in mind that although recognition is getting better by the day, its accuracy still needs improvement and results can be far from perfect.
Smart Plate
One of the reasons why results from a picture alone are not fully accurate is because there are a lot of variables that need to be analyzed with as much accuracy as possible in order to make the best possible estimation. Color, shape, their combination and various other data needs to be analyzed and compared with an existing database in order to provide an accurate estimation.
Thankfully, there are ways to further improve accuracy and SmartPlate uses one of these ways. SmartPlate uses image recognition as well, but in addition, there is a special plate that weighs food (as of 3 scales being inside of the plate). It is very interesting and it does help further increase recognition accuracy. By this way, more of the relevant data can be utilized in order to provide more accurate results.
Image recognition results also provide information about proteins, carbs and fats. SmartPlate is used together with an app for Android and iOS, offering more features as well. Examples would be a plant-based diet recommendation feature and hydration tracking. However, increased accuracy comes at a price, since we do not carry our plates everywhere we eat, with people who like to eat outside their homes perhaps also having a hard time using the advantage SmartPlate provides.
Conclusion
Both CalorieMama and SmartPlate use advanced image recognition and can help us to count and track our calories. Ways to help us with body weight management and diet already exist, and in the future, hopefully will get even better and more accurate in order to help us reach our diet & nutrition goals. Personalization in the nutrition and diet will be great to have in the future and image recognition is definitely one of the tools that can help in our journey to achieve it.
Final remarks
If you are a startup or a researcher interested in nutrition or working on nutrition and diet and want to continue the conversation, feel free to contact us!
Disclaimer
As a disclaimer, I would like to mention that I am not a doctor or nutritionist, I tried my best to write this article based on my experience and knowledge. Feel free to leave your comments and we would love to update the article.
