Menu scanner (eating out)

Restaurant meals are where portions are biggest and nothing is weighed. The menu scanner reads the menu for you and points at the dishes that do the most for your protein and fit what is left of your day.

How it works

1. Open Food & water → Eating out, or tap Eating out under “Or log it another way” on the Add food page.
2. Take a photo of the menu, or choose up to three photos if it runs over several pages.
3. Tap Read the menu. Usually in under a minute (a long menu can take a couple) you get your top picks, followed by every dish on the menu.
4. Tap the dish you ordered, choose how much you will have, check the meal and the date, and tap Log it.

How the picks are chosen

Every dish is worked out as it arrives at the table, including the sides the menu says come with it. The picks then put protein first:

• Protein toward your target. The protein you still have to go today counts most, so with a protein target set, the top picks lean toward the dishes that get you closest to it.
• Protein for its size. A dish with a lot of protein for its calories is marked High protein for its size.
• What is left of your day. With a calorie target set, a dish that fits the calories you have left is marked Fits what is left today.
• Your usual meal. Once you have logged a week or so of meals, a dish well above your usual meal is marked Likely two meals for you. Ask for a box and save half for later: when you log it, the portion starts at half, and you can change it.

Drinks and desserts are never top picks, but every dish is in the full list. Sort it by protein, by protein per 100 calories, or back into the menu’s own order.

Where the numbers come from

• Calories printed on the menu are used exactly as printed, because they are the restaurant’s own figure. Those dishes say Calories from the menu.
• Published nutrition is used for a chain wherever we can find it, including the public USDA food database. Those dishes say Published nutrition, or Based on published nutrition when a published figure was matched to the size of the dish.
• Everything else is an estimate, and says so. The calories have to agree with the protein, carbs and fat given for the same dish, and anything that gets corrected is listed under What we checked.

Logging what you ordered

Choose All of it, Half, or Other to enter a percentage, such as 75% if you left a little. The dish goes into your food diary as one entry for that share, with the restaurant’s name, and counts toward your targets like any other food. You can edit or delete it later from the Food & water page.