Today’s Patent – Automatic Tracking of Probable Consumed Food Items

The said invention (US11728025B2) was invented by Stephen Haertel, Wing Hon Lee, Lior Aronovich, patented by USPTO on 04-12-2024. Currently, it stands assigned to International Business Machines Corp.

The present invention relates generally to the field of information tracking, and more particularly to automatic detection of probable food consumption. Nutritional information and guidance are more abundant, and users are more cognizant of how proper nutrition plays a significant role in personal health and longevity. Nutritional applications for smart devices are prevalent and can provide user feedback based on manual entry of meals, snacks, and drinks consumed. Nutritional applications can determine and track calories of consumed food items as well as nutrients contained in the ingested foods. The applications can indicate whether the consumption of certain nutrients should be encouraged or avoided, and persistent use of nutritional apps and adherence to the guidance of nutritional apps have shown a strong, positive impact on a user’s health.

The method provides for detecting information associated with consumed food. Data associated with detection events of food for possible consumption by a user is received from a plurality of sources. The data of detected food is parsed using a first criteria and parsing of event metadata is done using a second criteria and the data received from the detection event. Aggregate data is created for the food items by combining the detected food item data and the respective metadata of the detection event. An ordered list of food items from the aggregate data is generated and arranged according to a determined user consumption probability for the ordered list food items. The aggregate data of respective food items of the ordered list includes nutritional information of macronutrients and calories, accessed from a database, and the list of food items potentially consumed by the user are formatted into a predetermined form.