It's kind of frustrating—I've been eating at the company canteen for nearly a year, and I still have no idea how many calories each dish has.
The auntie dishes out food entirely by feel—one day her hand is steady and she gives plenty of meat, the next day her hand shakes and it's all veggie scraps; the same dish might be greasy one week and as bland as boiled water the next. I wanted to keep an eye on my diet, but I can't exactly bring a food scale every time I get a meal—that's way too socially awkward. Looking up calories manually? A meal has three or four dishes, and by the time I've searched each one, my food is cold. I gave up after trying it twice.
Not long ago, I saw someone using EtinAI to snap canteen dishes, and I scoffed, thinking there's no way it could identify this kind of mixed stew scooped from a giant pot. But with a "try it and delete if it fails" attitude, I gave it a shot. Turns out, for the past half month, the last thing I do before wiping my mouth after a meal is pull out my phone and take a picture.
I tested the accuracy of three common canteen stations one by one
Our canteen isn't large—there are just three stations I usually eat from. I took pictures for a whole week and tested almost all the popular dishes.
The first is the home-style cooking station, which is also where I get my usual one meat and two vegetables. I typically get one portion of braised chicken leg, one portion of stir-fried cabbage, one portion of braised eggplant, plus half a scoop of rice. The first time I took a picture, I was pretty nervous—after all, the food was piled in the tray compartments, oil and sauce all mixed together. But the recognition turned out better than I expected. The chicken leg, cabbage, eggplant, and rice were all separated, and it even reflected that eggplant absorbs a lot of oil and is high in calories. Later, I estimated against a nutrition chart and found the total calorie difference was less than 50 calories—more than enough for daily reference.
The only small issue is that if it's a mushy big-pot stew where all ingredients are mixed together, it can only calculate the total calories and can't separate the amounts of each ingredient. But I don't eat that kind of dish often anyway, so it's not a big deal.
The second is the noodle station. I used to think soup noodles didn't have many calories—having a bowl at noon would leave me hungry early in the afternoon, so I figured it was good for fat loss. But after snapping a picture of beef noodles, I realized that a large bowl of noodles has carbs that go way over the limit, plus the oil in the soup makes the total calories even higher than the one-meat-two-vegetable combo. On the other hand, the clear soup wontons I used to think "wouldn't fill me up" actually have nearly half the calories of beef noodles. Now, whenever I feel like eating noodles, I specifically ask the auntie to cook less noodles and add more greens. That way I don't go hungry and can still keep the calories in check.
The third is the light meal station. This one is arguably the most accurate—chicken breast, broccoli, corn kernels, purple sweet potato chunks—each item is clearly distinguished, and even the drizzled vinaigrette is separately listed with its calories. I compared it with the nutrition reference chart posted at the light meal station, and the error was very small. When I want to hit my protein intake, snapping a picture here is especially convenient.
What's most useful: it helps you avoid the hidden traps in the canteen
My biggest takeaway from using it this past while is that the worst thing about eating in the canteen is never that the food tastes bad—it's that you have no idea where the calories are hiding.
I used to think rice was the big calorie culprit, so I'd deliberately take less rice. But after taking pictures, I learned that a portion of braised eggplant has way more calories than half a scoop of rice—it's all the oil it soaks up. And my favorite sweet and sour pork tenderloin—looks like it's all meat, but it's battered, fried, and then coated in sugar, so its calories are far higher than braised chicken leg.
Before, I chose dishes entirely based on a "light" or "healthy" feeling, and fell into many hidden traps. Now, before I get my meal, I have a rough idea: if a dish is oily and high in calories, I take less; if it's light and rich in protein, I take a bit more. Without deliberately dieting or driving myself crazy with calculations, just from the impressions built up over a few snaps, my eating structure has unknowingly become much more reasonable.
And crucially, it's not socially awkward. After eating, I casually snap a picture of my tray—three seconds and I get the result. Others might just think I'm taking a food photo for social media; they don't think I'm weirdly counting calories. For someone as socially anxious as me, this is really important—much better than pulling out a food scale and weighing everything.
To be honest, don't get your hopes up too high in these situations
Of course, it's not all-powerful. The canteen scene itself has many limitations, so let me give you a heads-up on a few points.
First, soups and porridges—like the canteen's seaweed egg drop soup or millet porridge—can only give a rough total calorie estimate and can't break down the specific gram weight of each ingredient; they're just for reference. Second, dishes that are heavily coated in sauce, where you can't clearly see the ingredients themselves—for example, various thickened braised dishes—will have larger recognition errors than stir-fried dishes. Also, if the auntie piles the food very high and ingredients obscure each other, accuracy can be affected.
But I think all of this is acceptable. After all, when you eat at the canteen, you can't be precise to the gram anyway. Having a rough idea of which dishes are high in calories and which meals are too heavy is already way better than eating blindly. Chasing too much precision becomes a burden and makes it hard to stick with it.
As for the ads and charges everyone cares about, it's still the same—I haven't seen a single pop-up ad since I started using it. The basic photo recognition and meal logging features are all free. The advanced features are hidden deep; you won't run into them unless you actively look. There's no pressure to upgrade to a membership, and it's really hassle-free to use.
Finally, let me give it to you straight
If you also eat at the canteen every day—whether you're a student or an office worker—and you want to pay a bit more attention to your diet, but find it troublesome and fear social awkwardness, then EtinAI is really suitable for you.
It's not some magic tool that will make you lose weight quickly, nor can it replace healthy eating habits. But it can lower the barrier of "knowing what you ate" to the minimum—no need to carry a scale, no manual calculations. Just snap a picture after your meal and you have a rough idea.
You don't have to force yourself to be precise every meal, and you don't have to feel guilty about eating a high-calorie dish. Adjusting easily and unconsciously actually makes it easier to stick with it long term.
After all, the basic features don't cost anything. If you want to try it, just download it. If it's not good, delete it—no loss.
Comments
Leave a Comment