--- description: One problem: calorie-counting doesn't actually work all that well title: Google Wants to Count the Calories in Your Instagram Food Shots image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75d9d12e4030dfa8/6987eb62e20a870957a88ed1/pizza.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Business](/section/business/) ## Business Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Tech](/tag/time-section-tech/) ## Tech Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Google Wants to Count the Calories in Your Instagram Food Shots by [Kia Kokalitcheva/Fortune](/author/fortune/) ## Kia Kokalitcheva/Fortune Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 2, 2015 10:35 PM CUT  Close-Up Of Pizza On Table Close-Up Of Pizza On TableGetty Images by [Kia Kokalitcheva/Fortune](/author/fortune/) ## Kia Kokalitcheva/Fortune Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 2, 2015 10:35 PM CUT Google is working on an app to help you lose weight. But too bad it’s based on bogus science. The app, unveiled at this week at a tech conference in Boston, uses algorithms to analyze photos of food uploaded to Instagram and estimate the number of calories in it, according to [_Popular Science_](http://www.popsci.com/google-using-ai-count-calories-food-photos "undefined"). The underlying technology comes from DeepMind, a company Google acquired last year for $400 million. Given the number of people who post images of every meal they eat to Instagram, it’s not surprising a team is working on helping those photographers to track their calorie intakes. But as well-meaning as the project, called Im2Calories may be, there’s one major problem: calorie counting doesn’t actually work. Food labels, where the app gets its data, have been shown to be [inaccurate](http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000002061153/calorie-detective.html "undefined"), raising serious questions about the app’s accuracy. Moreover, Im2Calorie’s leader, Kevin Murphy, acknowledged to _Popular Science_ that the system still has trouble identifying food in photos, although users have the ultimate say by approving or disproving the estimate. In any case, Google has already filed a patent application for the project’s technology. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3906612/google-calories-instagram-food/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3906612/google-calories-instagram-food/"},"headline":"Google Wants to Count the Calories in Your Instagram Food Shots","datePublished":"2015-06-02T22:35:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:05:35.935Z","description":"One problem: calorie-counting doesn't actually work all that well","url":"https://time.com/3906612/google-calories-instagram-food/","keywords":["Tech","Food","Google","Instagram","pubdesk"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75d9d12e4030dfa8/6987eb62e20a870957a88ed1/pizza.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kia Kokalitcheva/Fortune"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75d9d12e4030dfa8/6987eb62e20a870957a88ed1/pizza.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Pizza fast food","caption":"545770377","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3906612/google-calories-instagram-food/","name":"Google Wants to Count the Calories in Your Instagram Food Shots"}}]}] ```