How to use CosMeal

Your Today page

Today is the first page you see.

1. 1

   The date strip. Tap a day to see its meals. Tap the date at the top to open a calendar.

2. 2

   Your meals. Each meal you planned or logged appears as a card. A green Logged label means you have logged it.

3. 3

   The Baobao bar. Baobao is the app's assistant. Tap the bar to ask it anything, log a meal or plan a day.

4. 4

   The camera button. Tap it to log a meal with a photo.

5. 5

   The + button. Tap it to plan meals ahead.

The tabs at the bottom open the other pages: Today, Grocery, Insight, Recipe and Profile.

Log a meal with a photo

CosMeal reads your meal from a photo and estimates its carbs, protein, fat and calories. The result is an estimate, shown as a range.

1. 1

   Open the camera. On the Today page, tap the camera button at the bottom right.

2. 2

   Pick the meal. Under Log to, choose Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or Snack.

3. 3

   Take a clear photo. Keep the whole plate in the frame, in good light. Take one photo of the whole meal, or one photo per dish, up to ten. For packaged food, take a photo of the nutrition label.

4. 4

   Add a note, then tap Scan. Say what the food is and how much you ate. You can type it or say it. The more you tell the app, the better the estimate:Good: name the food, for example "brown rice and chicken".Better: say how much, for example "half a bowl of brown rice, two eggs".Best: give the weight, for example "brown rice 120 g, chicken 60 g". This gives the most accurate numbers.

5. 5

   Check your portion. The app shows how much it thinks you ate. Tap the pencil if you ate more or less.

6. 6

   Read the numbers. Carbs, protein, fat and calories are shown as a range, for example 34 to 42 g of carbs.

7. 7

   Tap Log dish. If the app named a food wrongly, tap Rescan, correct the note and scan again. Your photos and note are kept.

Look back at a logged meal

Every meal you log stays on the Today page. Tap it any time to see its numbers again.

1. 1

   Tap a dish to see its own numbers. The time you logged it is shown under the title. A meal logged on a later day shows no time.

2. 2

   Tap the meal's name, such as Dinner, to see the whole meal with every dish added together. Once a meal is logged, its name has a small › after it. Snacks are not added together.

3. 3

   Read the ranges. Each number is an estimate, so it is shown as a range, for example 40 to 50 g of carbs. The higher number is the app's best estimate. The lower number is about 20% less, as a safety margin. If you give the weight of a dish, or scan a nutrition label, the app uses those numbers as they are, with no range.

4. 4

   Two carb totals. Total carbs is the carbs in the meal. Carb-equivalent total also counts protein and fat. The next section explains both.

Total carbs and the carb equivalent

The carb card shows two totals. Total carbs is the carbs you ate. The carb-equivalent total also counts protein and fat, because they raise blood sugar too.

The examples are the dinner in the picture above: steamed fish with ginger, garlic choy sum and a bowl of white rice.

Why protein and fat count

Protein and fat raise blood sugar too, but later and more slowly than carbs. The liver turns part of the protein into sugar. Fat slows digestion and makes insulin work less well for a few hours. So their effect shows up about 3 to 8 hours after eating. CosMeal puts a number on it with a published method, the Warsaw fat-protein unit method.

How to use these numbers

• Total carbs is the number for your usual mealtime carb count. Do not add the protein & fat equivalent to it.
• After a meal high in protein or fat, such as steak or fried food, your blood sugar may rise a few hours later, even when the carbs were low. The equivalent helps you expect this. Watch for it on your meter or sensor.
• Some people with type 1 diabetes cover this later rise in a special way. Set this up with your diabetes team. CosMeal counts carbs. It does not calculate insulin.

Talk or type

Three places in the app take your words: the Baobao bar at the bottom of the screen, the Add a note bar when you log a meal with a photo, and the Anything else step when you plan meals. Each one works the same way:

1. 1

   At first, tapping the bar starts the microphone. Say what you want, then tap again to finish.

2. 2

   To type instead, tap the small round keyboard button at the right end of the bar. The keyboard opens.

3. 3

   To make typing the default, go to Profile, tap Voice or typing and choose Typing. This changes all three bars.

4. 4

   After that, tapping the bar opens the keyboard, and the small round button becomes a microphone button. Tap it when you want to speak instead.

You can change this back at any time in the same place.

Log or fix a meal by chatting

You can log a meal without a photo just by telling Baobao. Talk or type, whichever you prefer: the Baobao bar works as described in "Talk or type" above.

1. 1

   Log a meal without a photo. Tap the Baobao bar and tell it what you ate, for example "two slices of toast with butter for breakfast". Baobao logs it and estimates the numbers.

2. 2

   Fix a meal you already logged. A logged meal cannot be edited on its own page. Tell Baobao instead: how much you ate, what the dish was, or a number from the label. For example "I only ate half of the rice at lunch" or "that was brown rice, not white". Baobao updates the log.

3. 3

   Remove a logged meal. On the Today page, slide the dish to the left and tap Remove.

Plan meals ahead

1. 1

   Start a plan. On the Today page, tap the + button at the top left.

2. 2

   Answer a few questions. Baobao asks which dates to plan (up to 7 days), who is eating, any ingredients you want to use, how much time you have to cook, and anything else it should know.

3. 3

   Check the draft. You see the meals for each day. Add or remove meals, then tap Generate plan.

4. 4

   Wait a moment. The new meals appear on the Today page with a Generating… label, then fill in with recipes.

5. 5

   Change a planned dish. Slide it to the left and tap Swap to pick a different dish, or Remove to take it out.

You can also ask Baobao, for example "plan dinners for this week".

Make a grocery list

1. 1

   Open the Grocery tab and tap Pick dates. Once you have a list, the calendar button at the top right picks new dates.

2. 2

   Choose the days you want to shop for. The app builds one list from every planned dish on those days, sorted by aisle, with duplicates merged.

3. 3

   Shop. Tap the circle next to an item when it is in your cart. The item is crossed out.

4. 4

   Change an item. Tap its amount to edit it, or tap the red minus to remove it.

See how your week went

1. 1

   Open the Insight tab. Each week gets a score for each of your goals, based on the meals you logged.

2. 2

   Tap a goal to see what counted and where you landed.

3. 3

   Read Bao's suggestions for small changes to try next week.

4. 4

   Change your goals any time with Adjust goals.

5. 5

   Share the report with your care team. The share button makes a PDF of the whole week.

The more meals you log, the more useful your Insight is.