Cook healthy meals with a smart pan

It’s said that we are what we eat, so we really should be a little more careful about what we’re putting into our bodies.

Thankfully, a new ‘smart’ gadget is designed to help us create some wholesome meals. SmartyPans, which connects to a phone via Bluetooth, uses voice commands to tell the most novice of chefs the nutritional value of what they’re cooking.

The gizmo is also able to provide additional information, such as the weight of ingredients, internal temperature and humidity, keeping diners on track with their recipe and health goals. The Silicon Valley-based Prachi Baxi, CEO and co-founder of Smartypans, explains how connected cooking is the most nutritious cuisine out.

How did the SmartyPans project come about?

As a nutritionist, I always recommend that my clients cook at home. When it comes to cooking, my clients always struggle on the following front: learning how to cook or trying to replicate recipes from an app. Cooking can be a very time-consuming process and even I, as a nutritionist, find it tedious to check the nutritional value of every meal.

That’s what motivated me to reach out to my brother, a Carnegie Mellon University graduate engineer, to work with me and build SmartyPans. My goal with SmartyPans is to motivate people to cook at home, while making them aware of the nutritional value of the food they cook.

Could you explain how SmartyPans work?

SmartyPans is a smart pan, plus a free app. The pan, which connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth, contains temperature and weight sensors. First, you connect the app to the pan, then tell the pan what ingredients you are adding. The pan measures the weight and temperature of the ingredients going into your cooking, and based on that the app will document your recipe as you cook and compute the nutritional value of the food you’re cooking in real time.

How does theses pans improve people’s diets?

In two ways: The nutritional data is tracked in real time and just like a Fitbit, you can share the nutritional information with your fitness and nutritional apps, so that you can adjust your workouts, diet and health goals. Secondly, the recipes are based on your preferences and requirements. For example, if you’re diabetic, have heart disease or any other chronic degenerative disease, our app will recommend recipes based on your dietary needs. As you select the recipe from our app, it will give you step-by-step cooking instructions (quantity of ingredients, when to move on to the next cooking step, and when to lower or increase the heat, etc) so your nutrient intake matches with the recommendations to achieve your health goals.

What advantages do SmartyPans offers over conventional cookware?

These pans our able to monitor the weight and temperature of the food you are cooking in real time and therefore assist you with your cooking whether you’re a novice or an experienced chef.
It’s also customizable – the top part comes in ceramic non-stick or stainless steel varieties, which can be used as a baking or serving dish and the bottom part can be used as a scale to measure the weight of a dish.

Is this device safe for any use in the kitchen and is it dishwash safe?

The pan works like any other common cooking pan and yes, it is dishwasher safe.

When will it be available to purchase?

We are currently on Indiegogo and accepting pre-orders at an early bird discount, with prices from $189.

– By Daniel Casillas