4 Things a Dietitian Can Tell You About Your Eating That an App Can’t
Apps like MyFitnessPal and Noom are popular amongst folks who would like to eat healthier. Now with AI, new apps are coming out where you can simply take a photo of your food to get the calorie and nutrient breakdown—no measuring cups or scales needed. While I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t tell you how many calories are in a food without looking it up—let alone how many milligrams of vitamin A are in it—there are some things that I can tell you that an app can’t. Bonus: Talking to me about your eating doesn’t come with a side order of reducing food down to numbers, feeling guilty if you forget to enter a meal, triggering disordered eating thoughts, and reinforcing diet culture beliefs.
1. The Role of Timing
Calorie tracking apps don’t really pay attention to when and how often you eat, when it can play a significant role in your nutrition, even if you aren’t an athlete conscious about fuelling or recovery, nor getting into theories around intermittent fasting and circadian rhythms.
Most people tend to eat every 3-5 hours. For those who are eating less often than that, meals might be larger or more energy-dense due to increased hunger; for those who have a more “grazing” sort of eating pattern, meals will typically be smaller and there might be a tendency to eat foods that require less preparation than someone who is sitting down to a bigger meal.
Timing of eating can also play a role in energy and blood sugar levels. For example, eating a certain amount of carbohydrates all at once has a different effect on the body than if that same amount of carbohydrates is spread out throughout the day. This is particularly relevant for people with insulin resistance—there’s no need to cut out carbohydrates completely; rather, it’s about eating in a way that supports your body’s decreased insulin response.
2. How Different Foods/Nutrients Affect Each Other
Speaking of carbohydrates and insulin, one way to help blunt the rise in blood sugar is to decrease the glycemic load of your meals and snacks. In other words, eating different foods/nutrients together that are slower to digest and thus slows the rise in blood sugar. This can be relevant for people without insulin resistance or diabetes as well—when foods take longer to digest you feel satisfied for longer and you have a more steady release of energy rather than a sugar-high and crash right after. Protein, fat, and fibre can all help to decrease the glycemic load of a meal. This is actually quite intuitive for most people, like having a sandwich instead of plain toast, having side dishes with a bowl of rice, having pasta or noodles with lots of toppings are actually ways you are decreasing glycemic load and increasing satiety/satisfaction.
There are some less obvious matchups as well. For example, vitamin C helps to boost iron absorption, while the tannins in tea, coffee and wine can block absorption. (That’s not to say that you can’t have tea, coffee, or wine, but if you are struggling to keep your iron levels up, then have tea, coffee or wine between meals rather than with meals.)
3. What You’re Thinking/Feeling About What You’re Eating
Usually when I’m getting a sense of someone’s eating habits, it’s in conversation. This means that often people will share their reflections while sharing what/how much they ate: “This was not a normal day” or “I wouldn’t normally eat this, but…” This can give insights on a person’s relationship with food.
4. Whether You’re Eating Enough
In an app, what is considered “enough” food is very narrowly defined—the equations and tables used to define energy and nutrient “needs” are typically based on largely white, cis, male populations from many decades ago. Yet because it’s a ✨calculation✨ people often feel a tremendous amount of guilt if they eat more than what the app has told them is “enough,” or if they still feel hungry after eating the amount of calories that they’ve been told is “enough”.
Aside from that, eating enough goes beyond calories and nutrients. How much is “enough” to satisfy the need for different tastes, textures, and other sensory needs? How much is “enough” process or numb out from difficult emotions? How much is “enough” to satisfy nostalgia or novelty? How much is “enough” to connect back to your own culture?