Comment by owenpalmer

It's not about being right, it's about appearing to be right

Recently I have started running dish descriptions through deepseek-r1:8b to give a rough estimate on calories and it is sufficient, at least for my cooking. Of course this will hallucinate on complex cases, and arguably simple dishes are easy to count. Still, counting by hand is tedious compared.

I am happy with a rough number on a dish, I do not need precision to know if I am not eating enough calories. Note there are errors on the result and reasoning, but still this dish should be around the ballpark of 500 cal. I figure running this through a larger model might be more accurate. I wondered if maybe I wanted to create an app for that, but I am happy not to.

Yes, simple descriptions could be parsed with NLP, and yes, calories could be inferred with a database.

    >>> Calorie count of a dish that has: rice, broccoli, two pieces of turkey, and a fri
    ... ed egg. Assume this is a normal portion, for instance, there are 80g of rice.. Re
    ... turn the result in a json structure
    <think>
    Alright, so I need to figure out the calorie count for a dish that includes
    rice, broccoli, two pieces of turkey, and a fried egg. The user mentioned it's
    a normal portion, like 80g of rice. Hmm, okay, let me break this down step by
    step.
    
    First, I should find out how many calories are in each ingredient separately.
    Let's start with the rice. Rice is a common staple, so I think 80g of cooked
    rice has about 130 calories. I've seen that number before, but I should
    double-check to make sure it's accurate.
    
    Next up is broccoli. Broccoli is pretty low in calories, right? A portion of
    around 100g should be about 25-30 calories. Wait, maybe a bit more if it's raw
    or cooked differently, but I think for this purpose, 35 calories is reasonable.
    
    Then there are two pieces of turkey. Turkey can vary based on the cut and
    whether it's cooked. Let's assume these are regular chicken breast slices, each
    around 50g. Each slice would have about 110 calories, so two pieces would be
    around 220 calories. But I should make sure that I'm not confusing turkey with
    another type of meat. Turkey does tend to be a bit higher in calories than
    chicken sometimes, but 110 per slice seems right.
    
    Lastly, the fried egg. A single fried egg is usually about 140-150 calories
    depending on how it's made. Since there's just one egg, that's around 140
    calories. I think that's correct because yolks add a good number of calories
    due to fat content.
    
    Now, adding all these up: rice (130) + broccoli (35) + turkey (220) + egg
    (140). Let me sum them: 130 plus 35 is 165, plus 220 makes 385, and then plus
    140 gives 525. So the total would be around 525 calories.
    
    Wait a second, maybe I should consider if there are any other ingredients or
    whether portions were different. For instance, sometimes turkey portions can be
    larger or smaller depending on the meal. But since it's specified as two
    pieces, each at about 50g, that seems okay.
    
    Also, considering preparation methods: fried egg might have more calories if
    it's done in a certain way, but I think one fried egg is standard. Broccoli's
    calorie count could vary slightly, but for simplicity, the 35 seems fine.
    
    Is there any chance I'm missing something? Maybe adding spices or sauces, but
    unless specified, I shouldn't assume that. So the total should be around 525
    calories in a normal portion as described.
    </think>
    
    ```json
    {
      "calories": {
        "rice": 130,
        "broccoli": 35,
        "turkey": 220,
        "fried egg": 140,
        "total": 525
      }
    }
    ```

[flagged]

I don’t see why you believe 2 would be true. I expect a strong correlation between the visual appearance of food and its caloric content etc.