January is the month where everyone will be looking for new year’s resolutions, including making healthier choices when it comes to your diet. Introducing the SITU Smart Food Nutrition Scale designed for iPhone, iPad and Android devices, which works by weighing your food and sending the information to the app. From there you can then view the calories and nutrients on the app so you know exactly what you are putting into your body. You might not even consider that amount of sugar in a piece of bread for example, or sodium in cheese. This helps you learn the truth about the food you consume, therefore allowing you to make smarter choices.

The scales look good, with a clear backlit display; it is also nice and light at only 500g, so you can move it about easily. It is a good size at 190mm x 215mm x 22mm and it can withstand a max weight of 5kg (tip: 5kg of anything isn’t healthy!) The scales function well: the battery only lasts 6months, but I can live with that. What I don’t like is the app…you know… the whole point of the SITU! The food database is based in the USA, meaning that often what you are looking for isn’t in there and you have to look it up elsewhere, and you will spend a long time customising foods which is a laborious process. However, other elements of the app are useful: you can track your intake over time with the calendar, giving you a better insight into what can help you achieve your goals. So often I become disheartened when the scales inform me I have gained or maintained weight, but reminding myself of those 3 pizzas I had last weeks helps me feel more in control.

The ‘SITU app’ also supports the Health app in iOS 9 and above. You can create multi-users on the iPad with each member having their own account, but this is for iPad only. With another custom tool in the app you can create meals - provided you cook it with the same recipe each time and you can save it to My Dishes and simply weigh your portion and you will get the nutritional results. The app also allows you to use government recommended daily allowances or customise individual nutritional intake. You can also select your preferred measurement units. Rather than making life easy, I found using the SITU more of a hassle: it doesn’t link up to my other fitness apps like ‘Myfitness pal’ and is just too limited for my liking. If I need to look up a lot of the food and add it to the data base, I might as well go old school and just write it down in a notebook!

The SITU Smart Food Nutrition Scale could be ideal for beginners looking to get into a healthier lifestyle, but with its limited features and vast amounts of competition on the market it needs to up its game to become something you will use regularly. RRP £49.99

3 out of 5

Buy now

Pros

Nicely designed scales

Manually add foods and dishes

Cons

Limited functions

Predominantly American products

App isn’t compatible with popular fitness apps