Someone just rated my sandwich at a 57%! Come on, it’s way healthier than that. Over the last few weeks I have been taking pictures of everything that I eat, and I don’t mean in that arthouse Instagram kind of way. I have been submitting my food for social approval on the iPhone app, The Eatery.
You snap a photo of what you are eating and you have the option to add a little blurb about the food. As soon as you take your photo it quickly asks you to rate other people’s food. So while I let my lunch soup cool a bit I play judge and jury to the world’s lunch plate. A tuna sandwich? I rate it 60%, an apple 100%, a lasagna and a beer–22%!
About the time I start getting bored and super hungry from staring at other people’s food I get a notification–Your soup was just rated on The Eatery – 90%! Huzzah!
It’s so simple. I have always wanted to track my food intake but counting calories and trying to figure out how many @*$&^ servings I had was just ridiculous to figure out. Show 30 people your food over the course of a week and let them rate it healthiest to least healthy and you’ve got some real data to work with.
It took me a couple days to begin to see the value in this app. For one, it makes me conscience of exactly what I am eating. If I know there is going to be a jury of my peers rating my salad, I am going to put a lot less dressing on it. Why? Because I want better points. (See: Gamification.)
Another bit of value that I realized was that I was able to track my daily trends. I ate less healthy today than I did yesterday. I need to make up for it tomorrow.
The app isn’t without it’s hiccups. I would say that the biggest downside (or upside) is that it all depends on the photo itself. Take a beautiful sun-lit photo of lasagna, showcase the veggies in it, and you will get a higher rating than if you just snap a photo top-down in a florescent room. I know what I am eating is unhealthy but if I am a good photographer I can game the system. I guess the big point here is that you are only cheating yourself–unless you are using the app to become a fabulous food photographer, then you have got the hookup for three critiques a day of your work.
An example of the differences in ratings based on the photo was made clear when I made some curry for dinner one night. I got a 54%. I later reheated the curry for lunch the next day and got an 83%. I made sure the avocados were not saucy and took the photo next to the window. The differences in the rating are pretty drastic.
Even with the subjectivity of god-knows-who rating your food, this app still gets to the root of healthy eating. It makes you conscience of the food you are eating, and that is a great thing. 87%!
{ 1 trackback }