Snap meal solves the problem that packaged food does not have: a plate of something cooked at home, or put in front of you in a restaurant, with no label and no barcode anywhere. You photograph the whole plate, and the app reads the photo and returns an estimate of the calories and macros. It is an estimate rather than a measurement, and it is meant to be checked.
Estimating a meal
1. Tap Add to on the meal, open the camera and switch to the Snap meal tab.
2. Photograph the whole plate. That matters: a close-up of one corner gives the model nothing to judge the quantity by.
3. Tap Estimate meal. Retake meal photo if the shot is poor before you commit to it.
4. Check the estimate that comes back, correct anything that looks wrong, and log it.
Getting a better estimate
- Shoot from above, at a slight angle. Straight down flattens depth, so a mound of rice reads the same as a thin layer of it.
- Leave something familiar in frame. A fork, a standard dinner plate, a mug. Scale is the hardest thing to judge from a photograph and a known object helps enormously.
- Photograph it before you start eating. A half-finished plate is estimated as a whole one.
- One plate, one photo. A shared table of dishes is guesswork, because the model cannot know which part of it is yours.
What it cannot see
A photograph shows the surface of a meal and nothing else. Oil absorbed during cooking, butter stirred through, sugar in a sauce, the difference between full-fat and light. None of it is visible, and all of it moves the calorie figure. Meals where the fat is hidden are the ones this method underestimates most: curries, stir-fries, anything roasted or fried.
If you know something the photo does not, edit the values before you log. If an estimate comes back looking wrong, you do not have to accept it. Retake the photo, edit the values, or search for the food and log it that way instead.
When it is the wrong tool
If the food has a label, use Scan pack instead. Reading the manufacturer's own figures beats estimating them. If you cook the same meal every week, estimate it once, correct it properly, and save it to your cookbook. After that you are adding a known quantity rather than re-guessing it each time.
What it costs
A meal estimate spends one of your photo scans, and a Free account has 15 in total. Given how few there are, spend them on meals you eat often and will save, rather than on a one-off lunch.