Go on a Diet & Eat Healthy with Siri

The next time you’re wondering how many grams of sugar are in that donut and if it’s going to cut into your allotted daily calorie intake of junk food, just pull out your iPhone or iPad and ask Siri. Thanks to Siri’s ability to tap into the wealth of knowledge at Wolfram Alpha, you can use Siri to retrieve detailed dietary information.

To get started, here are the type of dietary inquiries you can ask Siri to get information on calorie counts, the amount of sugar, fat, or protein in something, and even how many calories are burned by particular activities:

• How many calories are in [food item]?
• How many grams of sugar are in [food item or beverage]?
• How many calories are burned during [activity]?
• How many calories are used in a [time] of [activity]?
• How many calories are in [amount of something]?

For some specific examples, try asking Siri the following type of questions:

• How many calories are in a cheese burger?
• How many grams of sugar are in a can of Coke?
• How many calories are burned in an hour of running?
• How many calories are used in an hour of sitting?

Like anything else that tracks and estimates calories and dietary contents of food, some assumptions are made on the size and quantity of items, so don’t expect Siri to know the cheeseburger you are asking about is actually a triple pounder with 15 pieces of bacon wrapped in a donut bun. Also, Siri makes some assumptions on the caloric usage of activities based on averages of body weight and size, when those numbers will obviously vary per person and on their physical condition.

The things you can do with Siri continues to expand into more useful categories, expect this trend to continue as Siri evolves into a more and more meaningful assistant.