EatSmart Digital Nutrition Scale - Professional Food and Nutrient Calculator
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of EatSmart Digital Nutrition Scale - Professional Food and Nutrient Calculator
Customer Review: Unless you have a specific need for "The Vitamin K Feature"... I DO NOT recommend this scale.
Summary: 4 Stars
This was the one and only scale I could find that gave the value of Vitamin K in each food. Being that my grandmother was diagnosed with DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) getting a Vitamin K reading was super important. There were so many foods she had to stay away from due to them counteracting with her DVT treating drugs. So, this distinctive feature... "The Vitamin K Feature" was a HUGE plus. It came in handy for quite a while. It was great because I didn't have to run to the computer and research how much Vitamin K each food at the table had. I'd simply put a plate on the scale (Tare feature) and plop the food right on there and read all the nutrients. So there was a reading per food and as you'd add up each food (M+) it'd give you a reading for the entire plate and would store the information for each day. (99 entries) It's nicely designed... small and cute... as well as easy to clean. Although, it took me a while before I realized the glass top was twistable and removable.
What I didn't like was:
1) Rummaging through the booklet for food codes on a busy day.
2) How time consuming it was to get the sum of nutrients. Because if you dare eat more than 4 different foods... it's gonna take you a while. You have to go back and forth with the food codes and the M+ button. So, before you start off using this feature make sure your food is steaming hot.
3) Being limited to the 1,000 food items in the database. This is probably a good thing because nearly all the foods are wholesome and healthy. Which is what you are supposed to be eating if you have a need to change and control your diet for any health reason. But, I would have loved to add to that 1,000 food database some of my own prepared dishes or some healthy packaged foods I use regulaurly.
4) After a while "The Vitamin K Feature" loses it's luster. You just begin to memorize what a plate low in Vitamin K looks like. Thus, illiminating your need for the very feature that set this scale apart from the rest of the scales out on the market.
One year and a half later my grandmother doesn't have much use for this scale. She seems to have found it easier to develop a taste palette for foods low in Vitamin K... not medium but low. So, I am now the only who uses this food scale. I weigh my food but do not use the memory mode. I find it easier keeping an online food diary. And not all sites/apps calculate the same exact nutrient information. Which are: Calories, Carbohydrates, Fiber, Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, Total Fat, Saturated Fat, Cholesterol, Calcium, Protein and my personal favorite... Vitamin K.
Customer Review: Great "Personal Nutritional Helper"!!
Summary: 4 Stars
What a great tool for anyone either working on their weight or having nutritional restrictions of any type! The ability to figure the nutritional value of any food -instead of having to rely solely on a pre-set list- is one of its greatest features.
Amazing how different the totals are when you actually weigh your "approx. 11 chips" worth of junk food. According to the label they should give you, say, 15g of fat. In reality, that can range from 12g to a whopping 20g, depending on the size of the chips/bits you pick out of the bag.
There are a couple of reasons not to give it a solid 5, though I'd have gone for a 4 1/2, if possible:
1) In a kitchen that is not super-brightly lit, a bowl or plate overhanging the digital display makes it hard to read the results. If the light is not shining at just the right angle, you cannot read the numbers.
This could easily be solved by a slightly back-lit display, or -even better- a button which would "lock" the display; by "locking", I mean that it would freeze the display at the last item weighed, even though you remove the item. If that tech detail is added, please make it so that, even though the item is "locked", it does not fully lock the display, but lets you still rotate among the various nut. values/screens for that item (if the scale was in Normal mode, obviously.)
2) Another slight inconvenience: I'd love to be able to add up all the Nut. Values of all the items I am preparing. That is, if I am making a salad and counting calories or fat, I'd love to be able to put a bowl on the scale, add lettuce, measure the calories; add tomatoes, add those calories to the total, add the olive oil, add those calories.... etc, etc.
This would turn it into the single most powerful and complete nutritional tool on the market. I'd pay more for this ability, of course. The company could still continue to offer the basic scale as is now, and then offer another, higher end one, with the above mentioned features.
3) The absolutely ultimate scale, the "One-and-Only-Wet-Dream-Nutritional Scale" would have a nifty little slot for a USB thumbdrive; This way, I could transfer all the data from my Super-Duper-Whhammodyne Scale to my computer, to an equally impressive and superb program, which would keep track of my daily, weekly... etc intakes.
But that is just a dream, I know..... why would anyone give us all we need in just one product, when we can just buy 3 or 4 items to have sit on our counters & desks?
Customer Review: Does not have the features I need most
Summary: 3 Stars
The "EatSmart Digital Nutrition Scale" is very useful for some foods. It looks nice and is easy to use. You weigh your portion of food on the scale, enter a 3-digit code from the book, and (ta-da!) the scale immediately computes your carbs or calories or etc. There are quite a few nutrition options available, enough that I don't remember them all. Most of the 3-digit codes are for individual ingredients: fruit (e.g., apple, peach, pear, seedless grapes), vegetables (e.g., peas, green beans), grains (e.g., white flour, whole wheat flour, barley flour), bread (e.g., white bread, whole wheat bread, pancakes), meat (e.g., chicken breast). While I would have prefered an alphabetical listing to the "category" approach taken by the scale's 3-digit code manual, I expect you'll get used to the booklet's organization pretty quickly. When in this mode, the scale can compute a sum of nutrition information from a series of ingredients (e.g., your flour, milk, and eggs). This is a convenient features.
The scale also has a mode where you examine the nutrition information from a package, enter the serving size in grams, enter (for the nutritional value of interst) the nutrition in grams per that serving, and the scale computes that nutrition for your serving. This calculation could be done with a calculator, but it is very nice that the scale will do it for you.
In all, this is an excellent scale for cooking from scratch or measuring from labeled packages (which includes just about everything for sale in the grocery store).
My problem is that this scale is this isn't what I need in a digital nutritional scale. When a nutrition scale really helps me is eating out, because few restaurants have the carbohydrate count information my type-1 diabetic child needs. This scale is not as helpful when eating out, because the booklet (3-digit codes) concentrate on single-ingredient foods. It doesn't list the sorts of foods I need: french fries, french toast, onion rings, blueberry muffins, cake, and other mixed-ingredient prepared foods. I haven't found a book that maps serving size in grams to carbohydrates in grams for common foods. If you have such a book, then this scale's second mode would be very useful for insulin dependent diabetics and you should probably add one or two stars to my rating. The manufacturor recommends Barrons' Quick Check Food Facts book for this purpose.
Customer Review: I love this scale!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have owned diet scales before but never one that calculates a food's calories at the same time. First and foremost I wanted a scale that was very accurate. Because this one was recommended by well-known weight control programs, I assumed it had to be very accurate and of good quality. And it is. Honestly, prior to receiving the scale, I wasn't sure if the "food counting" aspect would be useful or just an extra feature I would ignore. Now, I don't use my computer diet tracking or calorie counting books at all. I only use this scale. It is by far the best one I've ever owned. I eat a lot of whole foods so this scale is ideal for my diet. It is sooo much faster and easier than either using a calorie book, or the computer diet programs where you keep a computerized food log and have to look up each food, then type in the amount you have measured to get the calories and nutrition info. It is intuitive and super quick to use the code book and measure the food. It is also really helpful to see in real time how many calories a portion is just by placing it on the scale- allowing you to quickly add and subtract amounts of food to get the number of calories you want. (I'm not sure if I'm explaining this right, but you will know what I mean when you use the scale.) It definately beats trying to do it in reverse by measuring the food then looking up the calories. I never thought a scale would inspire me to stick to my diet, but this one has. I actually look forward to measuring my meals with it! Not only has really helped me meet my daily calorie goals, but using the scale has made my diet choices more flexible. And I'm learning alot about the nutrition and portion sizes of the food choices I make. I have not used the more advanced features like entering custom foods or the "additive" feature- it's just faster and easier to me to weigh each food separately then add the calories up myself. (One note- there is a very slight delay when you add an additional amount of food before the calories "update" to the new total- so be sure to give it a second to register before removing your portion from the scale to get accurate counts.) In conclusion, I absolutely love this scale and can't recommend it enough to any one who wants an easy to use, very accurate, and even inspiring way to keep track of your diet.Customer Review: Extremely Useful for Healthy Eating
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the greatest challenges in eating healthily involves really knowing what you are eating. This EatSmart scale does an awesome job. Just plunk the food item onto it - in whatever quantity you wish - enter its code and the numbers show up instantly!
The problem with most healthy eating projects is just how do you know what anything really is? Take "an apple". There are tons of types of apples, and they come in a variety of sizes. Is a green apple that is 3" around really exactly the same in carbs, fiber, etc. as a McIntosh apple that is 6" around? Did you know that many food values change DRASTICALLY if you eat that food raw vs cooked? The act of cooking the food sometimes enhances the nutrition - but sometimes it breaks down the fibers.
This scale is the answer. First, it's slim and clear. It takes up very little space on your kitchen counter, and fades into the background. When you need it, it's right there.
You plunk something onto it. Say you have a handful of seedless raisins and want to know how it's going to affect your blood sugar. Without the scale you'd have to make random guesses about how much you're eating and how big / small the raisins are and so on. No guesswork with the scale! You dump however many raisins you want to eat onto the scale. Type in their code - 064. POOF it gives you everything you want to know.
What does that include? The scale gives you:
calories
carbs
fiber
sodium
potassium
magnesium
total fat
saturated fat
cholesterol
calcium
protein
vitamin k
plus of course its weight :)
Not only is this superb for one item, but the scale has a built in memory. If you're making a meal, just keep putting the items onto the scale one after the other, adding each one into memory. When you're done with the meal, the scale will give you your full total.
There's a tare feature here, too. That means you can put a serving dish on first, and have the scale know how much that weighs. That way when you then put the "food item" into that serving dish, the scale will give you only the measurements of the food.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in having a more healthy diet!