Prepared Meal Calorie Estimator
Estimates calorie content of restaurant dishes using portion size visualization logic. Useful for dining out without a food scale.
About
Dining away from home presents a significant tracking challenge due to the opacity of ingredients and preparation methods (e.g., hidden oils). This estimator uses a curated database of international standard dishes to approximate energy content. Accuracy is enhanced via a "Visual Portion Matrix," allowing users to scale the calculation based on relative volume.
The underlying data aggregates values from major restaurant chains (representing the upper bound of caloric density due to generous fat usage) and standard culinary recipes. It applies volumetric multipliers: 0.75 for Small/Starter portions, 1.0 for Standard/Plate-sized, and 1.5 for Large/Shareable portions.
Formulas
The estimation formula is linear based on the base caloric density B of the selected dish type:
Where M is the size modifier. Note that restaurant variability typically introduces an error margin of ±20%.
Reference Data
| Visual Reference | Size Factor | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Fist / Baseball | Small (0.75x) | Typical side dish or starter portion. |
| Full Standard Plate | Medium (1.0x) | Standard restaurant entree serving. |
| Overflowing / Platter | Large (1.5x) | "Super-sized" meals or shareable platters. |