RE: Re: Software that reads food weights from kitchen scale directly?

December 17, 2004

Hello Aequalsz,

I use a

DigiWeigh scale to heap track of the weight of each item that I eat. It also

has the functionality to key in a food type code and compute calories. I do not

use this feature. I just put the weight on the print out of a spreadsheet that

lists my common foods and do the multiplication to count the calories.

I can see a great

deal of value in a system that would work as you describe. I too am a software developer

and would be willing to collaborate in such a project, (not with the idea of

making money from it). The problem seems to me to be quite simple. The scale

would just need to record a three-field file:

Item Id, DateTime,

Weight

There must be a

scale out there that could collect this information with a USB interface.

Once the above data

are in a file on the computer, you would just need a conversion table and an

interface to feed the data into any one of the existing nutrition programs that

are out there.

What do you

think? Is this the way that you see it?

From: aequalsz

[mailto:aequalsz@...]

Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004

2:17 PM

Subject: [ ] Re:

Software that reads food weights from kitchen

scale directly?

--- In ,

Dryden <@D...>

wrote:

> Hello All,

>

> I have been eating a CRON-style

diet for a year and a half now,

have

> evolved to eating once per day, have seen my

body temperature drop

about a

> degree F, and have seen my weight stabilize

for a few months at

around my

> pre-collegiate ad lib weight. So, I

think CRON will work for me.

The

> thing that I haven't done yet gotten around

to is the bookkeeping:

to

> count macro and micronutrients to confirm

that I am doing the CR

and ON

> components of CRON.

>

> I'm figuring that nutrient tracking is the

kind of thing that

software does

> well, and that since I eat most meals at

home, I can do this nicely

by

> telling some software (e.g. Walford's DWIDP,

or maybe something

else) what

> I am eating, and then having it tell me what

I am missing.

>

> For telling the software what I am eating, it

seems what I'd need to

do is

> weigh on my kitchen

scale the ingredients that go into my food.

>

> For this step, it seems that the ideal thing

would be to have

nutrition

> software that directly reads an electronic

scale. Then like the

person

> working the checkout register at a grocery

store where the scale is

> automatically tied into a computerized

point-of-sale system, I would

key

> into the computer just a code to identify the

food being weighed,

and the

> software would read the weight directly from

the scale. [There's

another

> optimization possible for the cook beyond

what happens in the

grocery store

> checkout. If the software can measure

not the total food weight on

the

> scale, but the delta since a previous

measurement, it can save a

> step. This would allow weighing each

ingredient as it is added to

the pot,

> without having to weigh it separately]

>

> My question to the list is:

>

> Does anybody know of a software or

software/hardware combo product

that

> works as I have just described, or that

somehow else would work to

spare me

> the tedium and inaccuracy of typing in food

weights?

>

> Thanks for any info.

>

> Best regards,

> Dryden

>

> PS: I am a software developer. If this

software doesn't exist yet,

then

> maybe I would create software to collect the

information as I

described,

> and then somehow pass the data into an

existing nutrition software.

Does

> anybody else see demand for this?

My take on this is that the CRON

market

> is tiny, but the weight-loss diet market is

huge. If there is a

> weight-loss diet that requires portion

measurement, then there might

be a

> market for such a product (or one already on

the market).

Hello,

I found this.

http://www.americanweigh.com/product_info.php?cPath=36 & products_id=62

(Might actually buy one.) Anybody used one

of these?

Aequalswz

December 17, 2004

Hi again,

Looks like the

solution just became simpler. Look at this!

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?cookie%5Ftest=1 & catalog_name=CTLG & category_name=CTLG_004_007_001_000 & product_id=26-950