Are AI photo food tracking apps accurate?

Nikkiey tried Cal AI after a room full of people at a conference downloaded it and called it the future of food tracking. On Ep. 281 she describes using it for about five days, and on Ep. 282 she says about a week. Either way, the results didn't hold up. She has eaten the same breakfast for roughly two and a half years, so she knows its macros. The app said her egg whites, whole egg and oatmeal or bagel came to 12 grams of protein. It put her yogurt and fruit at 16 grams when she knows it has 22 to 25.

As she puts it, that means you're not tracking, you're pretending. On Ep. 281 she adds that many people take the app's numbers at face value because they haven't spent time weighing food and learning what five ounces of chicken or half a cup of oatmeal actually looks like. With that kind of error, she says, you're either under eating or overeating, and three to six months later you see some progress but not the progress you could have had.

That's the part that matters most. If the numbers going in are wrong, a stall isn't proof you failed. You never had the right data to begin with. Nikkiey's recommendation is to stick with MyFitnessPal, where you can scan barcodes and enter food you've weighed, and to check yourself against one clear question: are you hitting your protein target?