Count calories without typing

The problem with typing

A traditional food log asks you to search for each ingredient, pick the right entry from a long list, and enter an amount. For a home-cooked dinner that can be six searches. Most people who stop logging stop here, not because they stopped caring.

What Luca does instead

1. Fit the meal in the square frame and take the photo.
2. Read the item list. In seconds Luca lists the foods it saw with an estimate of calories, protein, carbs and fat.
3. Correct what you know. Change a portion with the plus and minus buttons, or use Fix with words: type a sentence such as “the rice was brown, no butter” and Luca updates the result. You get up to 5 fixes per meal and they do not use a scan.
4. Log it.

You are editing a draft, which is quicker than writing from a blank page.

When there is no photo

• Say it. Describe the meal out loud.
• Type one line. “Chicken wrap and a small latte” is enough to get an item list.
• Tap a favorite. The breakfast you have most days is one tap, with the numbers you already corrected.
• Scan the barcode on anything in a packet.

Be honest with yourself about the numbers

A photo estimate is approximate. It cannot see cooking fat, dressings or how full a bowl is. It is a good starting point and a poor final word, which is why every item and number in Luca can be edited. How a scan works explains what to correct first, and how to estimate portions helps with the part a camera finds hardest.

Who this suits

People who want a rough, consistent picture of their day without a lot of data entry. If you need gram-level precision, weigh your food and enter it by hand; Luca lets you do that too, and manual entry is unlimited on the free plan.