An exploratory approach to deriving nutrition information of restaurant food from crowdsourced food images: Case of hartford

Xiang Chen, Evelyn Johnson, Aditya Kulkarni, Caiwen Ding, Natalie Ranelli, Yanyan Chen, Ran Xu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Deep learning models can recognize the food item in an image and derive their nutrition information, including calories, macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins), and micronutri-ents (vitamins and minerals). This technology has yet to be implemented for the nutrition assessment of restaurant food. In this paper, we crowdsource 15,908 food images of 470 restaurants in the Greater Hartford region on Tripadvisor and Google Place. These food images are loaded into a pro-prietary deep learning model (Calorie Mama) for nutrition assessment. We employ manual coding to validate the model accuracy based on the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies. The derived nutrition information is visualized at both the restaurant level and the census tract level. The deep learning model achieves 75.1% accuracy when compared with manual coding. It has more accurate labels for ethnic foods but cannot identify portion sizes, certain food items (e.g., specialty burgers and salads), and multiple food items in an image. The restaurant nutrition (RN) index is further proposed based on the derived nutrition information. By identifying the nutrition information of restaurant food through crowdsourced food images and a deep learning model, the study provides a pilot approach for large‐scale nutrition assessment of the community food environment.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number4132
JournalNutrients
Volume13
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Crowdsourcing
  • Deep learning
  • FAFH
  • Food environment
  • Food image
  • GIS
  • Hartford
  • Image recognition
  • Nutrition assessment
  • Restaurant

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