Food photos and macros

What it does

Send a photo of your meal. Earlie names each food and how much of it, for example 4 sarmale and a spoon of sour cream, or a slice of portokalopita on holiday, and takes the protein, carbs, fat and calories for each one from his food table. He logs the meal and keeps your total for the day. You can also describe a meal in words. Portions in grams, ounces or pounds all work.

When a meal takes your day over your target, Earlie also shows the last 7 days against your target and the way back. Only days with food logged count, and you need at least 3 of them.

When your evening total is far under your target, with little protein, Earlie says so gently and offers one small protein option for tonight, such as yogurt, eggs or a tin of tuna. He never calls a day like that a nice light day.

How to use it

1. Send the photo. One plate or the whole table.
2. Add a word if you like. For example “half of it”, “no rice” or “only 3”. Earlie changes only that food, with the table’s numbers. If a food was something else, for example “it was a fish soup”, Earlie changes its name and its numbers and tells you the new number.
3. Ask about your day. “What’s left today?” shows your total against your goal. After every meal Earlie also says what is left, for calories and for protein, for example “1837 kcal and 130 g protein left”.
4. Take a meal off. Name it, for example “remove the whole plate”, or say “remove the last one”, also right after a correction. When it is not clear which one you mean, Earlie asks first.
5. Correct a whole plate at once. Tell Earlie what it really was and he rebuilds the meal.
6. Ate only part of it? Say “I had half”, “80 % of it” or “am mâncat jumătate”. Earlie shrinks every food on the plate at once, or one food you name (“half the fries”), and the name shows the part, for example “(50 %)”. A second correction counts from the full plate, and “undo” brings the full plate back. If the part is not clear, for example “most of it”, Earlie asks once how much.
7. Have the same meal again. Say “the same as Thursday” or “another round”, also for something you had earlier today. If you had more or fewer pieces, say how many (“steak tacos x4”) and Earlie counts each piece the same as before. A general word like “vegetables” or “salad” is a new plate each time, so it does not start from an old number. If one food is different, say which one, and Earlie changes only that food. Each round stays its own meal, whole. When you name a dish you had before and Earlie’s new guess is far from last time’s number, Earlie logs last time’s number and asks once in the same message: “Same size as Monday’s steak tacos (about 350 each), or smaller ones (about 180 each)?” Answer “smaller” (or give your own number) and he changes the meal; “same” keeps it.
8. Your usual tortillas, pita and bread. These come in very different sizes, so the first time you log one with no size, Earlie saves the meal at a normal size and asks once in the same message, for example “Are your tortillas small taco ones (about 28 g) or big wraps (about 60 g)?” Answer “small” or “big” and Earlie fixes that meal and uses your size from then on, with no question. “2 slices of bread”, “bread x2” or “două felii de pâine” all count as slices, and so does “2 toasts” in English. “2 wraps” and “2 tortilla wraps” count as tortillas. “2 large wraps” counts large for that meal only. “My tortillas are the big ones now” changes your usual size.
9. Tell a meal later. Say “this morning I had an avocado toast” in the evening, and Earlie keeps it as your breakfast, at breakfast time, and lunch at lunch time. Your own words decide: “this morning”, “at lunch”, “last night”, in English or Romanian. Adding a food later (“this morning I also had a boiled egg”) moves the whole meal to its time too. So your day lists the meals in the order you ate them, and the next morning Earlie still sees that dinner is missing and asks about it.

Limits

• The amounts are estimates from the photo. Earlie cannot see a hidden sauce or oil. Tell him, and he adds them.
• A packaged food counts by its nutrition label when the label is in the photo.
• The numbers come from public food tables (Ciqual 2025 by ANSES, France; BLS 4.0 by the Max Rubner-Institut, Germany; FoodData Central, USA) and from Earlie’s own recipes for about 100 Romanian, 50 Greek and 50 Italian dishes, checked against the Italian (CREA) and Greek (Hellenic Health Foundation) food tables where they have the dish. A dish that is in no table gets its numbers from its label or the web, or Earlie’s estimate, said as one. A soup gets a soup’s numbers and a broth a broth’s.
• A part of a plate is changed in one step only for today. An earlier day is said back first and changes after your yes. One exception: when Earlie asks how much you had and you answer with the amount, for example “100 g”, your answer is the yes, and the earlier day changes in the same reply.
• Plain water is not logged.
• A meal told later moves to its meal’s time only when your message names one meal. “This morning a coffee, and for lunch a salad” in one message keeps the time you wrote it, unless Earlie names each meal himself.
• A photo and its caption sent a few minutes apart count as one meal. Another food in a new message is its own meal. The same food logged again within 10 minutes counts once, unless your new message names that food or says it is another one (“again”, “2 more”).
• A meal keeps its first estimate until you write again. Two exceptions: when you wrote how many you had (“4 steak tacos”) and the meal was saved with another count, Earlie fixes it in the same answer; and before Earlie answers, he may switch a food to a better match from the same food table look-up.
• Sauces, dressings and dips differ a lot: a tomato salsa is about 15 kcal a spoon, a herb sauce with oil about 240. “Salsa” counts as a tomato salsa. For other sauces Earlie picks the one your words or photo show, and when nothing tells, he asks once: a light one, or a rich, creamy or oily one?
• The “same size?” question comes only when the new guess is more than a quarter away from last time’s number, and at most once per meal. A dish with a weight in grams is never asked about.
• A portion different from last time’s is kept only when your message or your photo says what is different. A food you name with no number counts as one piece or one portion.
• A meal of one food is saved in your words when they name that food, with your count (“3 loaded steak tacos”). A meal name like “Lunch” is not used in place of the food’s name.
• A new count of pieces works for a meal of one food that said its count. When an earlier meal said no count, its number is the whole plate, never one piece: Earlie asks once “How many street steak tacos were on yesterday’s plate?” and counts each piece from your answer. For a meal of several foods, Earlie logs the new count as a new meal.
• The size question is only for tortillas and wraps, pita and slices of bread. Rolls, buns, bagels and naan are never counted as slices. Eggs, fruit and other pieces use a normal size, and “small” or “large” still works for them. Earlie asks one question per message, so when a message already asks something else, the size question comes with your next one. If you do not answer, Earlie asks once more on another day, then never. You can still tell him your size at any time.
• The week view after a big day needs at least 3 days with food logged in the last 7. The “normal days” part needs your daily calorie burn from setup. The week sentence comes once a day, with the meal that takes the day over. A later meal or a later correction does not repeat it.
• The evening note on a far-under day comes from 18:00 on your own clock, when the day has a meal, is under 60 % of your calorie target and under 40 % of your protein target. It never comes when your plan is built around a health condition or you turned food tracking off.