New Feature: Daily Calorie Counter

[BlakeTNC]

What

This is a suggestion and discussion for developing a "daily calorie log" feature for OpenFoodFacts. This could be developed as its own app, or as part of the smooth app.

Why

At the moment there is an unmet need for an open source daily calorie logging app. Calorie counting apps that include a food database are very popular and useful for health conscious people. For example, the 'MyFitnessPal' and 'Lose It' apps have 1.4 MM and 500 k star ratings on the Apple Store, respectively.

The hardest part of developing a daily calorie log app is to create the foods database, and the infrastructure for updating and sharing the database etc. So the existing food database in OpenFoodFacts would be a synergistic existing asset. In turn, the calorie logging feature could and likely would attract a whole new audience of users. The open food facts database could serve those people well, while also helping them meet their daily calorie targets.

Both of the mentioned commercial calorie counting apps have a $10/month subscription price for the full feature set. It would be very nice for another option to exist that was community driven, less expensive, more open, and more secure.

Example Screenshots

This is what the daily calorie logging feature looks like, on Lose It and MyFitnessPal.

A Description of Minimum Functionality

The daily food log page:
The daily food log page is the "main thing". There are other types of report pages on both existing apps, but those are more like "bonus features". for example, there might be a page that can show weekly or monthly calorie intake. However, the most basic needed information is the total calorie intake for the day, as compared to the "daily target calories" setting. Both of these numbers are visible near the top of the example screenshots.

Automatic date switching:
You will notice there is a date selector at the top of the screenshots. The date will automatically change after midnight. A new blank food log will be shown for the new day.

Food search page
Clicking the add food buttons will take you to a search page to add more foods to your meal. Foods that you have eaten recently for the same meal, will appear near the top of your searches.

Optional: Barcode scanning, for adding new foods to the database, or just to your current meal
In the existing apps, you can scan a food barcode to add it to your meal.

Optional: Custom foods
In the existing apps, you can add your own new foods (or combination foods called "meals") to the database with nutrition information. For each food entry you create, you can choose to share or not to share that food entry with all the other users of the app.

[teolemon]

@BlakeTNC

• Yes, it's been on my radar for quite some time. I've been exploring several ideas
  • Go from Nutri-Score of the product, to the distribution of Nutri-Score for a basket, or for a rolling week
  • Sedentarity assessment, Sport recommandations, Specific public advice (pregnancy…), Public health reco (no more than X of red meat per week…)
  • Nutrition but also Environmental self-tracking and reports
  • Trying to be casual and data-gap resistant (a lot of people don't want to put the effort, and )
  • Avoid degrading the main UI. Can we cram nutrition tracking without cluttering the XP ? Or should we do a separate app ?
    
• This week, MyFitnessPal announced they would make the barcode scanning a premium option creating a fuss on social media
• There is an open source app for calorie-tracking based on Open Food Facts called Waistline. It is coded with Cordova, and there would be some needed work both UX wise, and feature wise to be fully competitive.