This is the heart of KidneyPal. Snap a photo of your food, and in a few seconds you’ll know how it fits into your kidney diet — no label reading, no guesswork.
When to Use Photo Scanning
Photo scanning is best for plated food: home-cooked meals, restaurant dishes, takeout, anything sitting in front of you. For packaged foods with a nutrition label or barcode, use Label or Barcode mode instead — those give more precise numbers. And if there’s nothing to photograph (you already ate, or you’re logging from memory), use Quick Log.
How to Scan
- Tap the camera icon at the bottom of your screen. Meal mode is selected by default.
- Point your phone at your plate and tap the big capture button.
- Check the preview — Make sure your meal is clearly visible — then tap Continue (or Retake if it’s blurry).
- Wait a few seconds while the AI analyzes your meal.
You can also tap the gallery button to analyze a photo you’ve already taken, and the flash button helps in dim restaurants.
Taking a Good Photo
A better photo means better numbers. The in-app tips say it best:
- Ensure good lighting
- Center the food in frame
- Keep the camera steady
- Include all items in your meal
A roughly top-down angle also helps the AI judge portion sizes. If the AI says it can’t detect food, the photo was probably too dark or blurry — try again with more light.
Understanding Your Results
After a scan, you land on the Meal Analysis screen. Here’s what everything means.
The Kidney Score
The big number is your Kidney Score (0–100). Lower is better:
| Score | Label | Color |
|---|---|---|
| 0–30 | Kidney Safe | Green |
| 31–60 | Moderate | Amber |
| 61+ | High Burden | Red |
The same three levels show up as plain-language verdicts throughout the app: Kidney-safe meal, Moderate risk - watch portions, and High kidney burden. Below the score you’ll see a short explanation of why the meal scored the way it did.
The score is personalized to you. The same meal can score very differently for someone in early CKD versus someone on dialysis, because it’s judged against your own limits — see How Your Nutrient Limits Work.
Meal Totals
The Meal Totals card shows the meal’s sodium, potassium, phosphorus, and protein (plus any optional nutrients you’ve turned on). Each one is shown as a percentage of your daily limit, color-coded green, amber, or red. If the meal contains fluids (soup, coffee, a drink), the fluid amount shows too and counts toward your fluid limit.
As the card itself notes: Values are AI estimates and may vary.
Identified Foods
Each food the AI spotted gets its own card with an estimated portion, its nutrient values, and a safety badge: Safe, Moderate, or Limit. Foods that drive the score also get a warning tag, like “High potassium,” so you can see exactly which item is the problem.
Smart Swaps
If the meal could be kidney-friendlier, Smart Swaps suggests alternatives with the impact shown — for example, swapping one ingredient to cut a chunk of potassium, tagged Easy swap or Worth it. If your meal is already safe, you’ll see Great Choice! instead.
Full Smart Swaps require KidneyPal Pro — free users see a locked preview.
Pro Tip
At the bottom, the Pro Tip section gives one practical, personalized suggestion for this specific meal. This one’s free for everyone.
Fixing the Results
The AI is good, but it can’t see inside a casserole. You’re always in control:
- Wrong food? Tap Remove on that food’s card to delete it. Totals update automatically.
- Wrong portion or values? Tap Edit to adjust the quantity, unit, or any nutrient. As the app says: “These are estimates. Adjust if you know exact values.”
- AI missed context? Open the ⋯ menu and choose Re-analyze with details — the Meal Analysis menu below walks through it.
- Rename the entry using the Entry name field so it reads nicely in your diary.
Logging It to Your Diary
- Use the Servings control if you won’t eat the whole plate — 1 serving means the full meal as analyzed, so set it to 0.5 for half, or 2 for double. All nutrients scale automatically.
- Tap Add to Diary.
- Pick the date and meal (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, or Snacks), then confirm.
The nutrients are added to your daily diary totals right away.
The Meal Analysis Menu
Some of KidneyPal’s most useful tools live behind one button that’s easy to miss. Tap the ⋯ in the top-right corner of any Meal Analysis screen to open its menu.
Here’s what each option does:
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Save to Favorites | Saves the meal to your Saved Foods so you can re-log it in one tap. Tap again to remove it. |
| Re-analyze with details | Re-runs the analysis with extra context you provide — see below. |
| Share analysis | Opens your share sheet to send the results to someone, like a family member or your dietitian. |
| Add notes | Saves a private note about this meal — see below. |
| Ask About Meal | Opens a chat to ask the AI anything about this specific meal — see below. |
| Report Inaccuracy | Flags an analysis that looks wrong so a real person can review it — see below. |
| Delete Analysis | Removes this saved scan and its analysis — see below. |
On label and barcode scans the menu also includes Add Ingredients Photo, for adding the ingredients list to an existing analysis. See Label & Barcode Scanning.
Re-analyze with Details
The AI can’t see inside a casserole or know that you rinsed the canned beans. If it missed something, choose Re-analyze with details, type what it should know, and tap Analyze for an updated score and nutrient breakdown. Useful details include “low-sodium version,” “rinsed canned beans,” or “no salt added in cooking.”
Tip: Re-analyzing the same meal doesn’t use up another daily analysis — only brand-new scans count.
Save to Favorites
Eat this meal often? Tap Save to Favorites and it’s stored in your Saved Foods library, so next time you can log it in one tap from the diary — no new scan needed. See Your Daily Diary.
Add Notes
Choose Add notes to jot a private note about this meal — something like “felt good four hours later, no swelling.” It’s a simple way to connect what you eat with how you feel, which can be genuinely useful to share at your next appointment.
Ask About Meal
Choose Ask About Meal to chat with the AI about this exact dish. It knows your kidney profile, so the answers are personalized. Try questions like “Is this safe for my CKD stage?” or “How can I reduce the sodium?”
Free accounts get 2 questions per meal (the screen shows how many you have left). KidneyPal Pro removes the limit.
Report an Inaccuracy
If something looks clearly wrong — say, the sodium is way off for a food you know well — choose Report Inaccuracy, describe the problem, and tap Submit Report. Real people review these reports and they genuinely help improve the analysis.
Delete Analysis
Delete Analysis removes this saved scan and its analysis. If you already tapped Add to Diary, that diary entry stays put — deleting the analysis only clears the saved scan, not your logged nutrients. To take something out of a day’s totals, delete it from your diary instead.
The Daily Analysis Limit
Free accounts get 5 AI analyses per day, shared across photo scans, label scans, barcode scans, and Quick Log. The counter (“5/5 analyses left”) shows on the camera screen, and it resets at midnight local time. KidneyPal Pro gives you unlimited analyses — see Subscription & Billing.
How Accurate Is It?
Honest answer: photo scans give informed estimates, not lab values. They’re excellent for knowing whether a meal is generally safe or risky and which ingredient is the concern — but exact milligrams from a photo are approximations. Sauces, salt added in cooking, and hidden ingredients are invisible to a camera.
For packaged foods, label and barcode scanning is more precise. And if a number looks surprising, sanity-check it: tap Edit to fix values you know, or re-analyze with details. Most importantly, the limits that matter are the ones your doctor or dietitian gave you — KidneyPal helps you track against them, it doesn’t replace them.
