Sift
Sift helps you make better restaurant ordering decisions. Point your camera at a menu to scan it with OCR, or search from known restaurant menu datasets. Sift parses each dish, estimates nutrition, flags potential allergens, and ranks everything based on your personal dietary goals — so you can order with more confidence and less guesswork.
What Sift does
Menu scanning via camera OCR
Point your camera at a physical menu. Sift reads the text, identifies individual dishes, and extracts item names, prices, and descriptions automatically.
Restaurant menu search
Search from known restaurant menu datasets. When available, Sift pulls structured menu data including published nutrition info from chain and partner restaurants.
Nutrition estimation and dish ranking
For each dish, Sift estimates calories, protein, carbs, and fat. It detects likely ingredients and flags potential allergens heuristically. Dishes are scored and ranked based on how well they match your dietary settings.
History and favorites
Save scanned menus and your top-ranked dishes to revisit later. Your history stays on-device so you can quickly recall what worked at a restaurant you've been to before.
Personalization and scoring
Priorities and goals
Set calorie targets (lower, balanced, or higher), choose a macro focus (protein-focused, low-carb, balanced, etc.), and tell Sift what matters most to you. The scoring model weights dishes based on these preferences.
Dietary restrictions and allergy mode
Mark dietary restrictions like vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, or nut-free. Enable strict allergy mode to aggressively down-rank or hide dishes that may contain flagged allergens. These filters are heuristic-based and should always be confirmed with restaurant staff.
How scoring works
Each dish receives a score from 0 to 100 based on how well its estimated nutrition and ingredients align with your settings. The score is a guidance model — it reflects a best-effort estimate, not a guarantee. Actual nutrition and ingredients depend on the restaurant's preparation and recipe, which Sift cannot verify.
Safety and limitations
- OCR is imperfect. Lighting, angle, font, and menu condition can cause misreads or missing items.
- Nutrition estimates can be wrong. Calorie, macro, and ingredient estimates are heuristic and may be incomplete or inaccurate. They are not verified by restaurants.
- Allergen detection is not reliable. Sift flags potential allergens based on ingredient guesses, not verified data. Cross-contamination and hidden ingredients cannot be detected.
- Menus and recipes change. Restaurant menus, recipes, and preparation methods change without notice. Sift's data may be outdated.
- Always verify with staff. If you have food allergies or dietary restrictions that affect your health, confirm ingredients directly with the restaurant.
- Not medical advice. Sift is an informational tool. It does not provide medical, nutritional, or allergy advice. Consult a healthcare professional for dietary decisions that affect your health.
Data and privacy
Stored locally: Your dietary settings, scan history, saved dishes, and preferences are stored on your device. Sift does not require an account.
Processed remotely: Menu images may be sent to a server for OCR processing and nutrition estimation. No personally identifiable information is attached to these requests. See the full privacy policy for details.