Sweetgreen iPhone app applies meal calorie counts to Apple Health

Posted:
in iPhone
Organic food restaurant Sweetgreen has added the ability to apply calorie counts for take-out dishes to Health data when orders are placed through an app -- and it appears to be among the first of its kind.




Spotted on Thursday by AppleInsider, Sweetgreen's latest app update gives the user the option of including items in the cart to the Health app. When the "Add to Health" button is tapped, individual items or the entire order can be added.




There is still no central database of foods within Health, and the data added for food intake is still reliant on the user knowing the calorie content of a meal during the addition. Some apps have been developed to help with this process, but there is still no standard for the process.

The Sweetgreen app is relevant only to users with the restaurant locally, requires iOS 8, and occupies 122 megabytes of device storage space.

The Health application itself was launched in iOS 8, and aims to become a centralized repository for all of a user's health information, whether input manually or automatically collected through third-party iPhone accessories and the Apple Watch.

With Apple's Health app, and HealthKit, Users can configure emergency contact information, register to become an organ donor, track reproductive health conditions, log UV exposure, and much more.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    dougddougd Posts: 292member
    Kinda useless. Carb calories are much worse than fat calories. I doubt it distinguishes 
  • Reply 2 of 7
    kevin keekevin kee Posts: 1,289member
    I am using LifeSum, which is a better Apps for recording your meals and tracking calories from your food. The free version includes Diary, Plans and Recipes.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    dougd said:
    Kinda useless. Carb calories are much worse than fat calories. I doubt it distinguishes 
    He says as he waddles out of the KFC....
  • Reply 4 of 7
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    dougd said:
    Kinda useless. Carb calories are much worse than fat calories. I doubt it distinguishes 
    A calorie is a calorie ....   so I am not sure how what you metabolize to generate the energy can be a consideration.  Can one food type create more energy than another ? Yes but a calorie is still a calorie, unless it's a kilocalorie ;)


  • Reply 5 of 7
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    dougd said:
    Kinda useless. Carb calories are much worse than fat calories. I doubt it distinguishes 
    I just read through your entire 148 posts (since I wasn't sure if your calorie comment was just a joke or not).  Jeez ... negative much?
  • Reply 6 of 7
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member
    MacPro said:
    dougd said:
    Kinda useless. Carb calories are much worse than fat calories. I doubt it distinguishes 
    A calorie is a calorie ....   so I am not sure how what you metabolize to generate the energy can be a consideration.  Can one food type create more energy than another ? Yes but a calorie is still a calorie, unless it's a kilocalorie ;)
    Yes, a calorie is simply a unit of energy, however, a valid point is that the source of your energy matters. That requires a comprehensive analysis of a person's entire food intake, not just the data from one meal or dish.

    As far as I can tell, there's a certain limitation on the ability of these health tracking apps to properly identify food components, especially if they are not a standard item off a chain restaurant menu.

    Can an app tell the difference between a grilled ear of corn that has been prepared plainly, with a sprinkling of salt, or slathered with herb butter? Brushed with lemon juice? Brushed with soy sauce? 

    How does the app know that you ate all of it? Or did you buy for a group and only ate the salad? Or you pigged out on the potato salad? How much sugar is in those BBQ ribs, the ones you made on your own grill using a third-party sauce? Or the two bites you took of the dessert before tossing the rest in the trash. 

    Let's say I order french fries at an upscale bar and it comes with three sauces: ketchup, ranch, and garlic aioli. How does the app know whether or not I sprinkled additional salt on the potatoes? And how much of each sauce did I consume? Did I share the fries with anyone else?

    Restaurant food is notoriously high in hidden sugar, salt and fat. Likely, similar dishes from your own kitchen will be far healthier.

    Another dilemma: beverages. From a photo, you can't tell regular cola from diet, decaf coffee from regular. If you photograph a glass, you can't tell if you had any refills. Does a pint of beer (4% alcohol) look any different than the same glass full of 8% beer? Sitting at an airport bar with a Bloody Mary waiting for your flight? Did you order a double for an extra dollar or not?

    There's a lot of improvement that these apps will need to make to be more accurate.

    Unless you eat by yourself, eating from prepackaged meals or chain restaurants exclusively, I find it difficult to believe in the accuracy of these types of apps in their current state.

    Again, from my experience watching American people eat (in particular) in a large number of situations, you really can't tell if someone completely pigged out or tossed half of the food away. In fact, studies have shown that approximately fifty percent of food today in America goes uneaten. But which 50%? Clearly, it is not evenly applied to everyone. For someone who picks at their salad and has two bites of a chicken breast, someone else is eating half a rack of ribs and a pint of ice cream.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    mpantone said:
    MacPro said:
    dougd said:
    Kinda useless. Carb calories are much worse than fat calories. I doubt it distinguishes 
    A calorie is a calorie ....   so I am not sure how what you metabolize to generate the energy can be a consideration.  Can one food type create more energy than another ? Yes but a calorie is still a calorie, unless it's a kilocalorie ;)
    Yes, a calorie is simply a unit of energy, however, a valid point is that the source of your energy matters. That requires a comprehensive analysis of a person's entire food intake, not just the data from one meal or dish.

    As far as I can tell, there's a certain limitation on the ability of these health tracking apps to properly identify food components, especially if they are not a standard item off a chain restaurant menu.

    Can an app tell the difference between a grilled ear of corn that has been prepared plainly, with a sprinkling of salt, or slathered with herb butter? Brushed with lemon juice? Brushed with soy sauce? 

    How does the app know that you ate all of it? Or did you buy for a group and only ate the salad? Or you pigged out on the potato salad? How much sugar is in those BBQ ribs, the ones you made on your own grill using a third-party sauce? Or the two bites you took of the dessert before tossing the rest in the trash. 

    Let's say I order french fries at an upscale bar and it comes with three sauces: ketchup, ranch, and garlic aioli. How does the app know whether or not I sprinkled additional salt on the potatoes? And how much of each sauce did I consume? Did I share the fries with anyone else?

    Restaurant food is notoriously high in hidden sugar, salt and fat. Likely, similar dishes from your own kitchen will be far healthier.

    Another dilemma: beverages. From a photo, you can't tell regular cola from diet, decaf coffee from regular. If you photograph a glass, you can't tell if you had any refills. Does a pint of beer (4% alcohol) look any different than the same glass full of 8% beer? Sitting at an airport bar with a Bloody Mary waiting for your flight? Did you order a double for an extra dollar or not?

    There's a lot of improvement that these apps will need to make to be more accurate.

    Unless you eat by yourself, eating from prepackaged meals or chain restaurants exclusively, I find it difficult to believe in the accuracy of these types of apps in their current state.

    Again, from my experience watching American people eat (in particular) in a large number of situations, you really can't tell if someone completely pigged out or tossed half of the food away. In fact, studies have shown that approximately fifty percent of food today in America goes uneaten. But which 50%? Clearly, it is not evenly applied to everyone. For someone who picks at their salad and has two bites of a chicken breast, someone else is eating half a rack of ribs and a pint of ice cream.
    I'd have to go back and re think the OP to take in your comments and respond with any degree of intelligence and I haven't the time just now.

    To be honest I wasn't replying at that time with a single thought to the technology being discussed, purely to the non scientific comment inferring there are different types of calories depending of source of the fuel as opposed to different potential as you correctly write.  I thought I'd made that clear in my brief post as I assumed the poster realized that but worded his comment ambiguously.

    I would add I agree food portions are all too often ludicrous and food wastage is horrendous in all first world countries.  I wouldn't level this at Americans in particular though. Just as an aside,  my wife and I usually order one salad and one entree and share!  That way we leave room for those pesky alcohol generated calories ;)
Sign In or Register to comment.