'''Photograph a plate and Loopa reads it as a list of foods you can correct.''' It is a starting point that saves typing, not a measurement. You decide what goes in your log.

'''Meal photo is a Loopa Premium feature.''' Everything else on this page about logging food, including searching, scanning a barcode and typing an entry, is free.

== Taking the photo ==

# Open '''Health › Food''' and tap the '''camera''' on the add-food screen. On the web, use the '''Photo''' button on the food page.
# Frame the whole plate. Straight down from about a foot away works better than an angle.
# Tap the shutter.

A few seconds later you get the review screen: your photo, a one-line description of the plate, and one card per food it recognized.

Good conditions help more than a good camera. Even light, no shadow across the plate, and everything visible rather than stacked.

== What comes back ==

'''A list, not a verdict.''' Each food is its own line with its own portion and its own calories, and every line is editable. Adjusting, removing and adding are covered in [[editing-your-meal-photo|Editing your meal photo]].

'''One short sentence about the plate.''' Something like "Grilled chicken breast with a serving of broccoli and rice pilaf." It describes what it saw. It does not judge the meal.

'''Nothing is logged yet.''' The photo estimate is read-only. Your food log changes when you tap '''Log meal''', and not before.

== How the numbers are worked out ==

Every calorie on the screen is computed on Loopa's side from the food and the portion, never sent up from your phone. When you change a portion, the calories and macros for that line are recalculated from the same figures. Doubling the rice doubles the rice.

That is also why a food you '''add''' yourself has to be chosen from the food database rather than typed as a bare name: Loopa needs a food it holds nutrition for before it can put a number beside it.

== What it is good at, and what it is not ==

'''Reasonable at:''' identifying common foods, separating the components of a plate, and giving a portion in the right neighborhood for something with a familiar size.

'''Unreliable at:''' anything it cannot see. Oil in the pan, butter under the fish, sugar in the sauce, and the size of a bowl it has no reference for. A mixed dish photographed in one pile is a harder problem than the same food laid out.

'''Treat the portions as a first draft.''' The review screen exists because correcting a number is faster than typing a meal, not because the first number is right.

== Privacy ==

'''The photo is not kept.''' It is read, sent to the model that identifies the food, and gone when the request finishes. Loopa stores no copy and no reference to one, on your phone or on the server.

'''What is stored is the food.''' The estimate itself is held for '''24 hours''' so you can come back to a plate you photographed and got interrupted on, and it is encrypted with your own key like the rest of your food log. After that it expires and the app offers to look at the photo again.

'''Your corrections are recorded.''' What the estimate said and what you logged are both kept, encrypted, so the feature can be measured against what people actually eat. This is named in the privacy policy.

Progress photos are a different feature with different rules. See [[progress-photos|Progress photos]].

== When it does not work ==

* '''"That photo estimate has expired."''' More than 24 hours have passed. Tap to re-check the same photo.
* '''"That meal is already in your log."''' It was logged, probably on another device. Look at today's log before logging it again.
* '''The list is wrong enough to be useless.''' Tap '''Retake''', or close it and use [[food-search|Food search]] or [[describe-a-meal|Describe a meal]] instead. Typing "chicken thigh and a cup of rice" is often faster than fixing five lines.
* '''A plate can hold at most 25 items.'''

== Related ==

* [[editing-your-meal-photo|Editing your meal photo]]
* [[describe-a-meal|Describe a meal]]
* [[estimate-a-food-with-ai|Estimate a food with AI]]
* [[food-search|Food search]]
* [[barcode-scanning|Barcode scanning]]
* [[food-data-quality|Food data quality]]
* [[what-loopa-basic-includes|What Loopa Basic includes]]

[[Category:Food and nutrition]]