Many of us don’t have the will power to research through our food intake and find out what kind of calories we are dealing with before having a plunge. But, with the help of this new app-powered product named Diet sensor, you can do exactly that within a matter of seconds. So, that hunk of cheese, Nutella sandwich or turkey might not look so delicious after you have read about the kind of calories in them!
At the demo table of the CES 2016, the calorie counter worked extremely well, recognizing all kinds of food and calculating calories. Although it might be optional for us dieters, it has a much broader medical application in our everyday lives. For example, the diabetics can observe the number of calories they are eating and thus maintain a regular lifestyle. The same thing helped the co-founders Astrid and Remy Bonnasse found out that their daughter had type-1 diabetes. The main component of the system is SCiO, which is a molecular scanner made by Consumer Physics and subject of a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014. SCiO is basically capable of detecting the molecular signature of your food, and its database can then identify the different types of nutrients present inside.
Since it is the only device of its kind, not much else is known about it. Earlier, GE had demoed a calorie counter in 2014. Also another device could calculate your intake calories rather than those present on your plate. I am not sure how that would have been practical as it can only tell the number after we’ve eaten and induce remorse. Here’s a video from the Diet sensor team:
As expected, this device can work on homogeneous kinds of foods only. The sensor can tell you the nutritional value of a single steak, burger patty and a slice of cheese. Mixed foods and calculating their calories is a difficult task and doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. The sensor can be used by holding it above the food and then it requires you to take a picture of the item so that it can measure the volume. For 248$, this is a little expensive, but the real potential users of this device including diabetics are no stranger to costly measures, and this device can help them big time. So, molecular scanning is here, and it will have a huge impact in our future lives!