How nutritious is your plate? Ask this machine in Maharashtra

NAGPUR: Children get midday meal in government schools daily but the quality is always suspect, especially in remote areas like Gadchiroli. Soon, an AI-powered machine will scan each platter of the MDM and track nutrition, meal quality, quantity, and its impact on child’s growth.
A pilot project using one such device, developed by one of the leading startups UdyogYantra Technologies, is successful in a residential ashramshala school at Todsa in Gadchiroli, with the help of food delivery giant Zomato.This residential school has 200 students and their growth is being tracked with the help of this device for the last three months. “Thanks to this device, we could detect that 60 students in the ashramshala have nutritional deficiencies,” said Shubham Gupta, assistant collector, Etapalli, and project officer, ITDP, Bhamragad.
The artificial intelligence-powered device helps the school to capture and maintain digital health record of every child and Gupta can access this record anytime on the digital dashboard. According to the makers, this device can detect malnutrition, underweight, growth abnormalities in kids once it scans the user.
Zomato has sponsored this device to the ashramshala under its Feeding India initiative. Vishal Kumar, CEO and president of Feeding India said the result of this pilot has been very encouraging.
“After some students were detected with deficiency, Feeding India provided malt-based nutritious supplement to improve the nutrition level of these children. Together, we are making a real difference in the lives of the most vulnerable among us, and it’s a true honour to be a part of this meaningful work,” he said.
The district administration is eager to extend this project in ZP schools where children get MDM daily. “Initially, we started with an ashramshala where children get all their meals in school itself. We could fix the nutritional problems right there in the school. But, the real use of the device will be in regular ZP schools as we would be able to trace undernourished kids and resolve the problems,” said Gupta.
“What gets measured, can get managed. Qualityquantity and content of the food served in schools is directly linked to nutrition of our children. We believe this can accelerate a move towards a healthy India,” said Ankur Jain, founder and CEO of UdyogYantra.
Children in this ashramshala have now become familiar with this device. They step on the device with a plate every time to get facial recognition. The device immediately records the current weight, height of the child and BMI. It scans the food items in the plate and not only identifies the dishes but also estimates the nutritional values including food weight, plate weight, temperature, protein, calories, carbs, calcium, and fat values.