Sep 24, 2009 10:00 AM
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Keeping a food journal on the iPhone is nothing new; nor is it easy enough, on account of all the typing required, for most people to keep up with. But what if you could just scan your food?
That's the concept behind FoodScanner, which adds barcode scanning to the iPhone food-minding app concept, by way of Occipital's scanning engine. And it works! Either maintained on its own or synced with the associated DailyBurn website, FoodScanner is as simple as can be: Just scan a food item's barcode with your iPhone's camera, press a button to indicate how many servings you've had, and you'll (almost) immediately see an official-style nutritional panel, the contents of which are stored in your personal food database so you can feel fat numerically, if not physically.
The app relies on a preexisting database of about 200,000 foods and associated nutritional values, and the developers hope to see a bunch more once people start using the app—linking an unrecognized barcode to a food item only takes users a few seconds. The only thing missing here, really, is the ability to scan non-coded items, like fruit and veg—something which we know is at least plausible, since Amazon's been doing it with their shopping apps for a while now. FoodScanner still requires you to type these items in manually.
The FoodScanner app debuts for three dollars, and the online DailyBurn service is free. And hey, even if you're not dieting, there's a certain appeal to seeing your terrible, terrible diet quantified. [FoodScanner]
Send an email to John Herrman, the author of this post, at jherrman@gizmodo.com.
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