They say you are what you eat, and these kitchen scales can tell you, exactly, the nutritional content of just about any food you use to prepare a meal.

The scales come with an in-built computer that can analyze the nutritional content of the food you are weighing, from a database of over 1,400 different foodstuffs.

The scales not only report on nutritional information, but they can keep a record of total dietary intake, for up to two people, so that you can monitor calorie intake as well as other important dietary information over time.

Amongst other parameters, the scales can determine:

• Number of calories
• Amount of Protein
• Carbohydrates and net carbohydrates vs total sugars
• Total fat
• Fibre content
• Sodium
• Cholesterol intake

The device also works cumulatively as you are preparing a meal, so that it can keep a running total as you add different ingredients to the pot. It can even be programmed with a 100 of your own favourite recipes.

These scales cost a modest $99 and could be really useful if you and your partner are on a diet, for example, or if you have high blood pressure and are watching your sodium intake, if you’re diabetic… I’m sure the list is endless.

What would be really cool, would be if the manufacturers included a PC interface, so that you could programme the scales with new foodstuffs, as well as saving a history of your dietary intake onto your computer for further analysis and data processing.

The nutritional kitchen scales are available from Metro Kitchen. Found via kitchen contraptions.