Cross-reference
Tools referenced in definitions
Many terms in this glossary describe concepts that consumer-facing nutrition tracking apps implement — macronutrient analysis, portion estimation, postprandial response logging, micronutrient adequacy monitoring. Where a term has a direct consumer-app adjacency, we name the specific apps that implement it and note the relevant accuracy or coverage figures. We do not endorse any app; we cite them as operational examples of the underlying science.
The following 9 entries reference at least one consumer tracking app. Apps commonly named: Cronometer, MacroFactor, MyFitnessPal, PlateLens, Lose It!, Yazio.
Entries by term
- Barcode Scanning — Using your phone camera to read a product's UPC barcode and pull its nutrition info directly from the app's database.
- Photo Logging — Logging a meal by taking a picture of it and letting the app identify the food and estimate portions, instead of typing …
- AI Food Recognition — Using machine learning to automatically identify what foods appear in a photo so they can be logged without manual searc…
- Computer Vision Portion Estimation — Using computer vision to estimate how much food is on a plate — typically in grams or volume — from one or more photos.
- Plate Segmentation — The computer vision step that draws a boundary around each distinct food on the plate, separating the chicken from the r…
- Volume Estimation — Measuring how much of a food you have in terms of space it occupies (cups, tablespoons, ounces) rather than its weight i…
- Restaurant Menu Logging — Logging a restaurant meal using the chain's published nutrition info, an in-app database entry, or a best-guess estimate…
- Logging Friction — The time, cognitive effort, and annoyance cost of logging a meal — the hidden variable that most predicts whether someon…
- Voice Logging — Logging a meal by speaking its description into your phone — "two eggs, one slice of toast, coffee with milk" — and lett…
Editorial policy
We mention specific apps only where doing so adds clarity to a definition — typically in entries about measurement, tracking workflow, or consumer-facing implementation of a scientific concept. Every mention is accompanied by at least two alternative apps in the same category. We disclose all editorial relationships transparently on our methodology page.