Now this is interesting to those of us with cellcams and a habit of photographing our food. Sprint, the phone company, has come up with MyFoodPhone, a service where you essentially photoblog your meals from your phone and a nutritional advisor checks them out once every two weeks and gives you feedback on your choices. Once you’ve registered for an account, just take the picture, choose the Send option, and you’re done.
It works with all major carriers in the US and Canada (in beta in the UK), even non-Sprint services. It’s free to register and use, but if you want the advisor’s reports, that costs $9.99 per month, so $5 per evaluation, essentially. With a free account you can still upload pictures, interact with your MyFoodPhone buddies, and view and contribute to the forums.
Phonecams are addictive, and I’d consider joining this if I ate out more often (believe me, you do NOT want to see my desktop as a backdrop to food), but for the paid account I’d want to see some minimum standards on the nutritional advisors; nutritionists would, of course, be ideal. Still, if what you’re looking for is the support of a community and you’re a person of few words, this might be just the thing for you.
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raincoaster media 
rebeccascritchfield
August 14, 2007
The company that does myfoodphone has been around for the last few years or so. I first saw them exhibit at the Food, Nutrition Conference and Expo in 2003, before they linked up with Sprint. They do have registered dietitians that review the food photos. For some reason, I was under the impression this was much more expensive for the nutritionist support. They could have changed their business model.
I’ve never talked with anyone who has used this service and I have no knowledge on its efficacy either, but I would love to learn more from people who are using it.
Research studies have shown that photos can be used to accurately estimate portion sizes using a special technique and a size reference point (like a spoon or pen). Not sure if this is their technique.
I would think you’d need to provide other info like how the food was prepared.
Thanks for the info!
raincoaster
August 14, 2007
Thanks for that very informative comment. Good to know they’ve got registered dieticians, but if all their nutritional consultants are dieticians they should advertise it. I myself know at least four people who would use this service if they could be sure the feedback was to a professional level. If I had ten bucks a month to kick around, I’d do it myself for a test, but at the moment I’m deep in struggling blogger mode.