We’re proud to announce the latest update to the Carbs & Cals app, making logging your meals faster, simpler, and smarter.
Our new AI-powered Food Scanner lets you take a photo of the food on your plate and get fast nutrient analysis.
Swap typing and searching for quick, photo-based meal tracking.
How does the Food Scanner work?
Snap, analyse & log. Here’s how it works:
- Snap a photo of your plate using the Food Scanner.
- Our powerful AI instantly analyses the image, recognising each food item and estimating portion sizes.
- You’ll receive a detailed meal breakdown, including carbs, calories, protein, fibre, fat, saturated fat, 5-a-day, and alcohol.
- You can then edit, amend, and refine the results to make sure everything’s just right.
- Once your meal has been analysed, you can add it directly to your food diary and save it to “My Foods” for quick future logging.
Why we built the Food Scanner
Tracking nutrition should be quick and straightforward. However, time and effort are among the biggest barriers to consistent food logging for our users.
Listening to customer feedback, we understand that logging food and meals can sometimes be time-consuming, especially when combining multiple items into a single meal.
So we asked:
What if we let users log meals in seconds, without needing to type or search?
The new Food Scanner delivers this functionality to the app. Combining AI innovation, our in-house real-world food data, and smart automation to make tracking effortless and enjoyable.
The Food Scanner utilises advanced image recognition, linked to thousands of real meals from the bespoke Carbs & Cals database, the same trusted source that powers our award-winning books and app.
Results are accurate and reliable, ensuring you can log your meals with confidence.
Food Scanner FAQs
🔎 What foods can the Food Scanner read?
To use the Food Scanner effectively, take a clear photo of the food on your plate in good lighting conditions. The scanner utilises image recognition to match the items on your plate and continually learns. Providing feedback on your results helps us (and the machine learning) to improve and deliver better results over time.
📝 What should I do if I’m not satisfied with the result?
If the results returned to you don’t look right, you have a few options on how to edit the results. You can amend individual ingredients to ensure everything looks right. If you’re not happy with a result, re-try your food scan.
📶 Do I need internet for the Food Scanner to work?
Yes, scanning requires internet access to process the image with AI. Once you have saved an item to ‘My Foods’, it will be available offline.
🤳 Who can use the Food Scanner feature?
The Food Scanner is part of our Unlimited subscription. Unlimited subscribers get up to 100 plate scans per day and all features unlocked. You have complete control over editing, saving to My Foods, and adding to your food diary.
Daily limits reset every 24 hours.
💡 Is the Food Scanner free?
The Food Scanner is a premium feature. You’ll need to upgrade to an Unlimited subscription to get full access to the Food Scanner.
The Unified Scanner: Your all-in-one food tracking hub
The Food Scanner is the latest feature we’ve added to make food tracking quicker, easier and more intuitive and is part of the Carbs & Cals Unified Scanner.
The Unified Scanner brings together three intelligent tools for complete, convenient food logging:
Tool #1: Barcode scanner
The barcode scanner has been part of the Carbs & Cals app since 2023.
Scan the barcode of your favourite foods and get results from our verified database of over 272,000 UK food items.
It’s the quickest way to add packaged foods to your diary, providing accurate, up-to-date nutritional data directly from our food database.
Tool #2: Label Scanner
We launched the Label Scanner in September 2025. It lets you snap a photo of any nutrition label, instantly extract all the key information and add it to the app.
No more manual entry, no more searching. Just point, snap and track.
Tool #3: Food Scanner
And now, the newest addition: the AI-powered Food Scanner. Perfect for home-cooked meals, restaurant dishes, or anything on your plate.
Take a photo, and our AI will identify the foods, estimate portions, and provide a complete nutrition breakdown.
Unified food tracking
These three food tracking tools form the Carbs & Cals Unified Food Scanner, your hub for food tracking and nutrient logging.
Whether it’s a packaged product, a nutrition label, or a freshly prepared meal, the Unified Food Scanner ensures you can track it all. Quickly, accurately, and in one place.
By combining trusted data, AI innovation, and user-friendly design, we’re making food tracking faster, simpler, and smarter.
Get started today!
Download the Carbs & Cals Mobile App
The Carbs & Cals Food Scanner is available now in the latest version of our app.
- Search 272,000+ food & drink photos.
- See up to 6 portion sizes per food.
- Unified Barcode, Label & Food Scanner.
- Add your favourite foods.
- Track your nutrients and set goals.
- Your personal diet pro.
Whether you’re a long-time user, someone returning after a break, or brand-new to Carbs & Cals, this feature will make your food logging easier, faster and smarter.
If you have feedback on the new food scanner or need assistance, you can contact our app support team via the website or the Carbs & Cals app. If you’re enjoying the new feature, we’d be so grateful if you left us a review in the App Store or Google Play. Your feedback helps others discover Carbs & Cals, too!
Sign up to the Carbs & Cals mailing list
Want to learn more about carb counting and the role of food in managing your health? Sign up to our mailing list!
