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Newly released on Kickstarter, the SITU is a food scale with a built-in Bluetooth chip that enables it to communicate with an iPad. When a food item, such as fruits, vegetables, or even chips, is placed on the scale, it weighs the food and then relays the nutritional information to the iPad via the SITU companion app.

situfoodscale.jpg

Designed to allow people to monitor their calorie intake and other nutritional factors while preparing fresh foods, the SITU can measure each component of a meal to calculate its exact nutritional value. It's able to measure individual components and more complete meals, like a sandwich, a bowl of cereal or a slice of pizza.
Place your food on SITU and you'll see exactly what's in it-from calories to salt to sugars to vitamins and minerals. You can use SITU to quickly check the nutrition content for a single piece of food, or you can choose to go further, tracking entire meals, saving them to your dietary history, setting alerts for nutrient limits, and even exporting your data to share with your doctor, nutritionist, or personal trainer.
According to the product's developers, the SITU is a useful tool for calorie counters, athletes, parents, health professionals, and those who want to be more health conscious, tracking nutrients like sugars and salts within food.


Additional details about the SITU and multiple videos of the product in use can be found on the Kickstarter page. Interested backers can preorder the SITU for a pledge of £50 plus £12 for shipping outside of the U.K., which equates to approximately $103. There are a limited number of scales available at that price and orders are expected to ship in November of 2014.

Article Link: SITU Smart Food Scale Connects to iPad to Relay Nutritional Information
 

xFerrr

macrumors member
Jun 2, 2011
39
7
well it'd be better with an iphone and in a really smaller size... since you cant go out to a dinner with friends with those 2 things with you... would be awkward
 

Nalmond92

macrumors regular
Apr 26, 2013
218
108
UK
Being in the UK i jumped on this a few hours ago! £50 did seem expensive but i think the RRP will be much more.

Here's hoping it could integrate with health book as (naively) I thought it would be a no brainer to do so.
 

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
Place your food on SITU and you'll see exactly what's in it–from calories to salt to sugars to vitamins and minerals.

You know... I really don't think you will.

A useful approximation maybe--some of the time. Exactly the vitamins and minerals? That would be awesome! Not true. (Not when they're showing that sandwich of multiple ingredients—the kind of scenario that fits most of what we eat.)
 
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sulpfiction

macrumors 68040
Aug 16, 2011
3,075
603
Philadelphia Area
I think it's a waste of time & too bulky unless u eat every meal at home. Not even a little bit interested and I'm looking for apps to help me with eating right.
 

vancetv

macrumors newbie
Apr 2, 2014
1
0
Cute but not very functional.

Instead of waiting until this is available a much improved options is an app called "Nutrition Calc" for iOS (iPhone and iPad).

It shows the standard "Nutrition Facts" label on which you can add food items and discover all vitamins, minerals, and other item in intuitive way. Everyone who has seen a food label will know how to use this.

I use it every morning for my smoothies, add all the ingredients to see what vitamins and minerals I luck the most and try to compensate by adding fruits and vegetables that can balance that out.

Here is a link to the app store:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nutritioncalc-food-intake/id796311473?ls=1&mt=8
 

Jeaz

macrumors 6502a
Dec 12, 2009
677
1,147
Sweden
This product might be intruding on a patent for a product I used to do some occasional development for. It's focused for healthcare only so maybe that makes it ok, but other than that it's the exact same thing

It was more than 10 years ago and at the time it was for the iPaq but the principle was the same. I'm sure they've made ios version of it now.
 

JTP3XP

macrumors newbie
Aug 8, 2013
5
1
This sounds exactly like The Orange Chef's PrepPad, which launched on Kickstarter a year ago and is now available for sale (I think Williams-Sonoma carries it now as well).

http://theorangechef.com/products/prep-pad

I have one. It needs some software improvements but is well-built.
 
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xizdun

macrumors 6502
Nov 13, 2011
270
464
Idiot, carbohydrates makes you put on weight, not "calories". What's the point of "weighing" your food?
Avoid carbs and you'll lose weight, period.

How the hell does the scale know what object(s) I've put on it? Don't I still have to select on the iPad the ingredients in my food (two slices of bread, cheese...)?

Low-carb, high-protein is the secret to weight loss.

This is moronic.
 

TimeSquareDesi

macrumors 6502
Apr 25, 2013
443
253
I'm totes New Yorkian
Solutions looking for problems.

Moreover, this appears to be a scam. My evidence is that the so called "inventors" are actually the same person, just Photoshopped onto a different body.

SITU_CEOS_Photos_9Mar14-001.medium.jpg
 

Zxxv

macrumors 68040
Nov 13, 2011
3,558
1,104
UK
Idiot, carbohydrates makes you put on weight, not "calories". What's the point of "weighing" your food?
Avoid carbs and you'll lose weight, period.

How the hell does the scale know what object(s) I've put on it? Don't I still have to select on the iPad the ingredients in my food (two slices of bread, cheese...)?

Low-carb, high-protein is the secret to weight loss.

This is moronic.

carbs don't make you put on weight. too many calories does.
 

ChrisH3677

macrumors 6502a
Oct 6, 2003
769
96
Victoria, Australia
How does it know what's in the sandwich? Does it scan it?

You would have to weigh each part of it individually to get a reasonable result.

And that is the bane of anyone counting calories - estimating how much lettuce, tomato, ham, bread etc is in their sandwich. Most folks end up just guesstimating. I can't see this being any smarter.
 

jclo

Managing Editor
Staff member
Dec 7, 2012
1,969
4,300
Am I the only person wondering about the nutrition content of the plate?

I'm guessing you weigh the plate/bowl first so it can remove it from the total weight of the food.
 

randian

macrumors 6502a
Jan 15, 2014
778
352
carbs don't make you put on weight. too many calories does.
Incorrect. Insulin is what makes you put on weight. Too high a carbohydrate intake and/or high insulin resistance means you have a lot of insulin in your body. That's why people who don't eat too many calories still get fat. Despite reasonable carbohydrate intake they have excess insulin in their body and they can't lose weight even with severe calorie restriction.

The range of insulin resistance is very large. I have about 3x the insulin resistance of the benchmark person. That is, it requires about 3x the insulin to reduce my blood glucose back to baseline compared to the benchmark. Think about how out of whack your body would be if any other hormone had triple the usual supply.

Most people aren't fat because most people aren't plagued with excessive insulin resistance. People who appear to be able to "eat what they want" simply have very low insulin resistance. It's not a matter of having "great metabolism". Insulin resistance increases as you age, which is why weight gain and age are linked.

Weight loss is a hallmark of diabetes. A diabetic, before the discovery of insulin, was distinguished by emaciated appearance. Without insulin signaling your cells that energy and nutrition are available you quite literally starve even though you eat plenty and have astronomical blood glucose.
 

AttilaBorbo

macrumors newbie
Aug 12, 2013
16
0
Incorrect. Insulin is what makes you put on weight. Too high a carbohydrate intake and/or high insulin resistance means you have a lot of insulin in your body. That's why people who don't eat too many calories still get fat. Despite reasonable carbohydrate intake they have excess insulin in their body and they can't lose weight even with severe calorie restriction.

The range of insulin resistance is very large. I have about 3x the insulin resistance of the benchmark person. That is, it requires about 3x the insulin to reduce my blood glucose back to baseline compared to the benchmark. Think about how out of whack your body would be if any other hormone had triple the usual supply.

Most people aren't fat because most people aren't plagued with excessive insulin resistance. People who appear to be able to "eat what they want" simply have very low insulin resistance. It's not a matter of having "great metabolism". Insulin resistance increases as you age, which is why weight gain and age are linked.

Weight loss is a hallmark of diabetes. A diabetic, before the discovery of insulin, was distinguished by emaciated appearance. Without insulin signaling your cells that energy and nutrition are available you quite literally starve even though you eat plenty and have astronomical blood glucose.

You got it backwards. Insulin resistance does not lead to obesity. Obesity leads to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

Weight loss is a hallmark of type 1 diabetes, where there is a deficit of insulin.

Someone already said it: excess calories leads to weight gain, caloric deficit leads to weight loss. Whoever thinks if they ate 4000 calories a day in fat and protein won't gain weight because they ate no carbs needs to read up on gluconeogenesis.
 

randian

macrumors 6502a
Jan 15, 2014
778
352
You got it backwards. Insulin resistance does not lead to obesity.
If insulin resistance did not lead to obesity, then taking excess insulin would not make you fat. The fact that it does make you fat, and too little will make you look like a concentration camp survivor, should tell you something.
Obesity leads to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Obesity increases insulin resistance. It does not lead to it.

As for Type 2, it's not the insulin resistance that made you diabetic. That's just the thing that exposed the problem. The problem being that, unlike normal people, T2 diabetics do not increase their beta cell mass and/or regenerate their beta cells when the pancreas is stressed. This overwork burns out the beta cells leading to T2 diabetes.

Most insulin-resistant people do not have this genetic flaw, so they have a marked tendency to become fat but do not become diabetic.
Weight loss is a hallmark of type 1 diabetes, where there is a deficit of insulin.
Type 2 diabetics also have a deficit of insulin, they just usually produce enough to maintain their weight. That's not permanent, though, a T2 can continue to lose pancreas function.
Whoever thinks if they ate 4000 calories a day in fat and protein won't gain weight because they ate no carbs needs to read up on gluconeogenesis.
Not what I said or what I meant. If you're doing that (and not riding a century to burn it all off) you will indeed get fat. Fat, by the way, doesn't participate in gluconeogenesis, so it has no effect on blood glucose levels. Score one for LCHF diets.
 

AttilaBorbo

macrumors newbie
Aug 12, 2013
16
0
If insulin resistance did not lead to obesity, then taking excess insulin would not make you fat. The fact that it does make you fat, and too little will make you look like a concentration camp survivor, should tell you something.

Insulin resistance is not the same thing as too much insulin. The former situation is when another cause, i.e. obesity, leads to insulin insensitivity, which leads to type 2 diabetes. The latter situation, when you are taking excess insulin in the setting of normal insulin sensitivity, can of course make you gain weight.

Obesity increases insulin resistance. It does not lead to it.

That's splitting hair here. Insulin resistance is not a binary 1/0 event. It's a continuum. Fat cells secrete adipocytokines that mediate insulin sensitivity and obesity increases insulin resistance.

As for Type 2, it's not the insulin resistance that made you diabetic. That's just the thing that exposed the problem. The problem being that, unlike normal people, T2 diabetics do not increase their beta cell mass and/or regenerate their beta cells when the pancreas is stressed. This overwork burns out the beta cells leading to T2 diabetes.

You are right about the process leading to T2DM. But this process of progressive beta cell dysfunction is triggered by insulin resistance and subsequent hyperglycemia. Treatment of diabetes can partially reverse the beta cell dysfunction.

Most insulin-resistant people do not have this genetic flaw, so they have a marked tendency to become fat but do not become diabetic.

Once again this is not a binary 1/0 event. Different people have different predispositions in the face of progressive insulin resistance. Some populations like south Asians and Pacific Islanders are more likely to develop overt diabetes than others due to genetic differences.

Type 2 diabetics also have a deficit of insulin, they just usually produce enough to maintain their weight. That's not permanent, though, a T2 can continue to lose pancreas function.

Yup I agree...T2DM can burn out to a brittle state resembling T1DM to a degree and get into acute problems like DKA.

Not what I said or what I meant. If you're doing that (and not riding a century to burn it all off) you will indeed get fat. Fat, by the way, doesn't participate in gluconeogenesis, so it has no effect on blood glucose levels. Score one for LCHF diets.

That wasn't directed at you but someone earlier. But fat absolutely does participate in gluconeogenesis after it's been broken down into free fatty acids.
 

smirking

macrumors 68040
Aug 31, 2003
3,741
3,713
Silicon Valley
T2 diabetics do not increase their beta cell mass and/or regenerate their beta cells when the pancreas is stressed. This overwork burns out the beta cells leading to T2 diabetes.

I was at the early stages of T2 a couple of years ago and it's precisely because of my T2 that I'd consider buying a scale like this. Along with very regularly testing my blood sugar and weighing and tracking everything I ate using fitness tracker apps, I was able to gain a good understanding of what foods I needed to avoid and how much of various carby foods I could eat and still maintain normal levels.

I credit my apps for accelerating my ability to make changes and adapt. A lot of these tracker apps really have a lot of potential for people who need some kind of feedback mechanism to help them understand exactly what behaviors need to be changed. They seem silly until you try them and realize just how enlightening they can be. I was like the guy who said above that you'll never catch him putting his food on a scale... I never had a need to. I was quite fit. You mentioned the link between being Asian and having predisposition to become Type II... I'd fall into that demographic.

The app guided approach worked so well for me that I've regained enough beta cell function to relax the dietary guidelines a bit. Needless to say, I no longer find these kind of product ideas to be crazy. All that weighing and recording was quite tedious, but worth it. I'm sure the SITU will still be fairly tedious, but maybe less enough so that it'll encourage some people to stick to their plan.
 
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