The App Review: Calorific - What do calories look like?

Each week we review a food related app. This week it’s Calorific – find out what the Lempert Report thought.

What it says it does: Calorific shows you exactly what 200 calories look like with beautiful photography. Why 200 calories? Because it's a nice portion size and makes it easy to recognize how many calories you are eating without needing to check the labels. The concept of a calorie can be hard to grasp and understanding what foods contain how many calories can be even more difficult.

So what does 200 calories of any given food or drink actually look like? Each food has been meticulously researched, weighed and photographed in high definition.

What it actually does: Calorific boasts over 180 beautiful retina photographs that can be sorted and searched by name, weight or type of food. You’ll even be able to make comparisons of opposing foods side by side – like spinach and peanut butter. View as grams, ounces or descriptions.

How useful is the information for target audience?: The photos that are available are very useful, but unfortunately, you can not access almost half of them unless you pay to upgrade the free version of the app - for $1.99 or, you can pay 99 cents if you share on Facebook or Twitter.

Ease of use: The app itself is very easy to use, but truly understanding the portions is a bit difficult. For one, how large is the plate?

Who would best benefit from the app?: Anyone who wants to get a basic understanding of portion size. The only issue is that the size of the plate is not specified – so the visual reference point could be better and more clear.

Cost: Basic version is Free
Rating: 87/100
Visual: 15 (1-15)
Usability: 12 (1-15)
Content: 22 (1-25)
Usefulness: 20 (1-25)
Value: 8 (1- 10)
Options: 10 (1- 10)

Click here for more info.