Necklace That can Track Your Calorie Intake

Scientists have developed a high-tech necklace that can track your calorie intake by ’listening’ to sounds of different foods as you chew them.

Researchers are creating a library that catalogues the unique sounds that foods make as we bite, grind and swallow them.

Each food as it’s chewed has its own unique sound and the device can help people suffering from diabetes, obesity, bowel disorders and other ailments by enabling them to better monitor their food intake and improve how they manage their conditions.

“There is no shortage of wearable devices that tell us how many calories we burn but creating a device that reliably measures caloric intake isn’t so easy,” said Wenyao Xu, assistant professor of computer science at University at Buffalo.

Xu is creating a library that catalogues the unique sounds that foods make as we eat.

It’s a solution that approaches a problem from the opposite end, counting calories consumed instead of calories burned. Taking AutoDietary’s approach, consumers are overwhelmed by data, Xu says.

Described in a study published February by IEEE Sensors Journal, AutoDietary is like Fitbit and other wearable devices. Only instead of tracking burned calories, it monitors caloric intake – in other words, what we eat – at the neck.