Calk can estimate sugar and carbohydrate from recorded food. It cannot see your blood-glucose response.
The report keeps several questions separate: how much added sugar appeared and which foods supplied it, how often sweet snacks appeared, and whether a meal carried a high estimated glycemic load.
Throughout this page a meal means one eating occasion: the dishes recorded within 45 minutes of each other, not each separate line in the diary.
Added Sugar#
What Calk calculates. Calk adds up the added sugar in recorded food and shows it as a share of the calories you ate, next to a 10% limit. At 5% or less the card says there is little added sugar. Up to 10% it says you are within the limit and names the main source if one stands out. Above 10% it names the main source and on how many days it appeared; if the sugar is spread over many foods, it says so and counts the days over the limit. The card needs at least four days of logged food.
WHO recommends keeping free sugars below 10% of total energy and suggests further reduction below 5% for additional health benefits. “Free sugars” is broader than “added sugar”: it also includes sugar in honey, syrups and fruit juice World 2020.
What you can do. Check repeated drinks, sweetened yogurt, breakfast products, sauces and desserts. Sugar-sweetened beverages are a useful first place to look because they can add substantial energy without replacing much solid food Malik 2019.
Sweet Snack Frequency#
What Calk calculates. Calk counts the days on which foods classified as sweet snacks appeared and their share of recorded energy. What matters here is occasional versus repeated.
What you can do. If one sweet snack appears on many days, make its place deliberate: a chosen portion after a meal, a smaller package, or a different snack on some days. Keep the food if the arrangement works.
Snack Quality#
What Calk calculates. For small eating occasions — 50 to 300 kcal in total and under 15% of that day’s energy — Calk checks whether they provide meaningful protein or fiber relative to their energy. The diary does not record which of them was meant as a snack, so size decides what gets counted. This is a narrow composition test.
What you can do. If a snack is meant to solve hunger, choose one with protein or fiber: yogurt, fruit with nuts, vegetables with hummus, an egg, or a bean-based snack. If it is meant to be dessert, let it be dessert.
Meal Carbohydrate Balance#
What Calk calculates. Calk finds meals in which carbohydrate supplies most of the energy, then checks whether the meal also contains meaningful amounts of both protein and fiber.
What you can do. Keep the carbohydrate and complete the meal: add beans to rice, eggs to toast, tofu to noodles, or vegetables and protein to pasta. The aim is a complete meal.
Estimated Glycemic Load#
Start with a meal you repeat. Calk highlights eating occasions with high estimated GL and shows how often they appear.
Portion size is your first lever. Keep the dish you enjoy: use less rice or pasta, add vegetables and a protein food. Compare its composition and GL before and after.
This estimates the food you logged. Glucose measurement shows your personal response. How we calculate GL.