Which app uses AI to count calories with a photo

Until recently, counting calories meant looking up each food on a list and estimating grams by eye. Now there are apps that do the same with a photo of the plate: they identify the foods, estimate the portion, and return calories and macros in a few seconds. We tell you how they do it, what their real accuracy is, and which ones you can try.

How it works internally

When you take the photo, the app sends it to an artificial intelligence model trained with millions of food images. The process has three parts:

1. Recognize what’s on the plate. The model distinguishes “white rice”, “chicken breast”, and “broccoli”, just as you would by looking at it. With typical dishes, it’s almost always right; with stews, sauces, or mixed dishes, it gets the whole thing right (“stewed lentils”) but cannot see what’s inside.
2. Estimate the portion. This is the difficult part. The model calculates how many grams of each item there are based on the relative size of the plate, the height of the food, and visual references. This is where most of the error lies.
3. Convert to nutrients. With the foods and grams, composition tables are applied, and calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fats are output.

In Fotorie, additionally, the result shows a confidence indicator: if the app is not sure (mixed dish, low light, sauce), it tells you to review the portion.

Accuracy, unadorned

A “normal” dish (protein, side dish, vegetable, visible and separate) usually falls within a 10-20% margin compared to weighing everything. That is comparable to the error made by an experienced person estimating by eye, and better than most people.

Where it fails most:

• Stews and potages. You can’t see the oil or the amount of legume under the broth.
• Sauces and dressings. A tablespoon of oil is 90 invisible kcal.
• Stacked foods. A mountain of pasta can be 80g or 200g.
• Drinks. A glass of juice and a glass of water look very similar.

The good news is that almost all of that can be fixed with a correction: if you know your pasta portion weighs 120g, you adjust it and the calculation is rescaled. And for oil and sauces, just tell the app. You have more details on the calories by photo page.

Which apps do it

Cal AI. The one that popularized the idea. It only does that: photo, calories, and macros. It works with a subscription after the trial and is designed for the Anglo-Saxon public, with portions and dishes from there. If you live in Spain, you will notice that sometimes it doesn’t recognize a spoon dish well. You have the comparison in Cal AI alternative.

Foodvisor. French app with photo recognition, European database, and paid nutrition plans. Good identification of Mediterranean dishes.

Fotorie. Our app, made by Vitasane, nutrition centers in Seville. It starts with the photo and adds what comes next: a weekly menu with real recipes, an AI coach who knows your weight, your workouts, your medication, and your blood pressure, and a calorie plan that doesn’t cross healthy minimums. In Spanish, with local dishes, with data on European Union servers, and with a free plan to start.

Other more generalist apps (MyFitnessPal, Yazio) have been adding photo recognition in their paid versions, with variable results. The cited brands belong to their owners; the information is available as of September 2026.

How to take the photo for it to be accurate

Five tips that greatly improve the result, whatever the app and model:

1. Natural light or good overhead light. No flash, which flattens the food and misleads volume estimation.
2. From above, with a slight angle. About 45 degrees: you can see the surface and height of each food.
3. The entire plate within the frame. The edge of the plate is a size reference that the model uses.
4. One plate per photo. If there are two plates or a sharing platter, the portion skyrockets.
5. Before mixing. A salad with the dressing on the side is estimated better than when tossed; rice next to the sauce is better than submerged in it.

And when the dish is a stew, give it a clue: “lentils with chorizo” or “without chorizo” changes the calculation quite a bit, and in Fotorie you can write it or tell the coach.

Who it’s worth it for

The photo is not more accurate than weighing; it’s easier. And that changes everything, because the record that works is the one you do every day. If you’ve been starting to count calories for years and giving up after two weeks, it probably wasn’t a lack of willpower, but a method that was too cumbersome.

As with any nutrition tool, the result is indicative: if you have a pathology, a special situation such as pregnancy or lactation, or a competition goal, the plan should be supervised by a professional.