The spoon counter, powered by artificial intelligence, is a technology that calculates the calories of food consumed, one spoonful at a time. It has been shown to be quite accurate, with only a 4.4 percent difference from the actual number of calories consumed. This makes it suitable for an ordinary calorie counter or a nutritionist advising on weight control.
Yuhao Chen, the creator of this artificial intelligence, hopes to further enhance its abilities by incorporating a language model that can help identify food ingredients from new recipes. However, limitations in estimating the exact number of calories still exist due to variations in factors like cooking methods and ingredients used.
This technology is now being developed to recognize food brought to the mouth with different utensils like forks, hands, or chopsticks. This would make it particularly useful in settings like nursing homes to monitor the eating habits of the elderly and sick. It could also have various applications in healthcare, dietary tracking, and weight management.
