How photo recognition works
- Take a photo: with the camera or from your gallery. The image is downsized on your device first and location data is removed.
- Check the suggestion: the AI breaks the meal into ingredients – say pasta, sauce, cheese – and estimates the grams. Uncertain items are flagged.
- Adjust and save: change amounts, untick what doesn't fit, save. Where possible, nutrition values come from the German Food Code instead of an estimate.
How accurate is counting calories from a photo?
Honestly: as accurate as a good estimate, not a kitchen scale. The AI is good at visible foods and typical dishes. Still difficult:
- Oil, butter and sauces – a tablespoon of oil has about 90 kcal and is barely visible,
- portion sizes – without a size reference, 150 g and 250 g of pasta look alike,
- hidden ingredients – fillings, dressings, sugar in drinks.
That's why the app flags such items and saves nothing without your confirmation. For everyday use it's plenty: logging roughly right every day shows your progress far better than not logging at all.
Tips for better results
- Shoot from slightly above with the whole plate in frame.
- Separate foods are recognised better than stews.
- Add cooking oil and butter to the suggestion – it often makes the biggest difference.
- For dishes you eat often, create your own recipe once – after that it's one tap.
Cost and privacy
Photo recognition is part of Premium for €5 a month, cancel any time. Everything else in the calorie counter stays free. For the analysis the photo or your description is sent to OpenAI – only with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time. Photos are stored neither by us nor by OpenAI. Details are in the privacy policy.
Prefer to start without AI? A classic food diary with food search and barcode scanning is free.