HAPIfork

From the Fitbit to the Nike+ Fuelband, the market is bursting at the seams with fitness gizmos that can help you track how many calories you’re burning. But what about the calories you consume?

That’s a trickier technological challenge. Which helps explain why, at January’s CES conference in Las Vegas, a startup called HAPIlabs attracted so much attention with its first gadget. The HAPIfork encourages you to eat more slowly — which can translate into eating less — by monitoring how quickly you shovel your fork into your mouth and vibrating gently if your pace is too torrid. Even Stephen Colbert took notice.

The HAPIfork still isn’t available for sale, but it’s making progress: on April 17, HAPIlabs launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the $100,000 it needs to proceed. (More than $48,000 has already been pledged as I write.) One day before that, I got to try out a prototype unit myself, during a Vietnamese lunch in San Francisco with Jacques Lepine (the fork’s creator), Andrew Carton and Fabrice Boutain of HAPIlabs.

I’m close to an ideal prospective HAPIfork customer. I know that I usually eat at too brisk a clip, and it bugs me. Without reading research on the subject, I suspect I could take off at least a few pounds if I slowed my roll. And as a gadget nerd, I just like the idea of a fork equipped with technology such as Bluetooth, microUSB and a capacitive sensor — or at least I’m willing to give it a try without going into reflexive snark mode.

At first glance the HAPIfork does look odd and ungainly — except for the tines themselves, it resembles an electric toothbrush. You also need to turn it on before you start chowing down. (The battery, rechargable through the USB port, lasts for two weeks.) But as I ate with it, it felt fine in my hand and I didn’t feel too self-conscious.

Which is not to say that I forgot I was using a most unusual fork. That was the whole point of the meal, and the subject of most of the table conversation. I was keenly aware that my goal was to

wait at least ten seconds between bites, so I rarely set off the vibrating reminder to slow down. (It’s mild indeed — neither painful nor startling — and you can adjust the desired interval between bites.) The experience, while interesting, wasn’t quite a real-world test.

 

But I did get a sense of how well the HAPIfork’s tech worked. For the most part, it did exactly what it’s designed to do: the fork detects when it makes contact with your mouth, times the intervals and rattles briefly if appropriate. The only malfunction occurred when I ate some noodles — as they flopped around, they sometimes confused the fork and caused false-positive vibrations. HAPIlabs says that a software update will fix this glitch.

The fork sports Bluetooth, letting it zap the data it collects wirelessly to apps for iPhone and Android; you can also upload data to a PC via a USB cable. Once you’ve done one of these transfers, you can analyze stats such as how many bites you’re taking per meal and how often you take a bite without adequate pause. Even though HAPIfork’s software can’t tell you how many calories you’ve consumed, it should be able to help you drive that number down if you put your mind to it.

Making the HAPIfork work at all wasn’t easy. Inventor Lepine first started on the notion of a gadget to encourage slow eating back in 2004 and experimented with other approaches before focusing on the fork — and then spent years refining it. He hopes to use HAPIfork to collect aggregated data on its users’ eating style for study by experts.

HAPIlabs plans to ship HAPIforks to Kickstarter benefactors who pledge at least $89 in the third quarter of this year. Then it intends to begin selling them for $99 to other consumers. I’d like to give it a more extended test drive once it’s available.

And already, after just one meal, it’s had some impact on my eating. As I’ve consumed further food this week, sans HAPIfork, it’s still been on my mind — and I’ve been doing a better job of pacing myself. It would be pretty cool if it turns out that using a HAPIfork results in a permanent change to its users’ mealtime behavior, whether they’re eating with this idiosyncratic utensil or an old-fashioned piece of silverware.

When the waiter places a steaming bowl of fettuccini alfredo before you and your mouth starts to moisten, pacing yourself is the last thing on your mind. Unless you're chowing down with a HAPIfork , that is, voted by PCMag as the best gadget of CES 2013.
The washable smart fork is slightly bigger than your usual utensil and uses sensors to record how many bites you take and how quickly you take them. If you shovel in more than a bite every 10 seconds, the fork gently vibrates, reminding you to slow down. It syncs with an online dashboard and accompanying Android or iOS app, allowing you to monitor your eating habits.
It takes 20 minutes for your brain to register that you are full, founding company Hapilabs explains, so eating more slowly helps prevent overconsumption and the associated weight gain. It can also resolve digestive problems and ease postoperative complications, according to the company.

 
Hapilabs initially developed the device for clinical and medical purposes. Now it's seeking Kickstarter funding to bring it to consumers in an attempt to promote more mindful eating in the face of America's—and the world's—obesity epidemic.
Hapifork (available in pink, green, and blue) will retail for $99, but early bird backers can get theirs for $89 with a September delivery date. Planning a romantic dinner for two? Pledge $175 or more and unlock the Hapi Couples reward—that's one fork for you and one for your partner.

Two Problems With Eating Too Quickly
The body was not meant to shovel down huge mountains of food. Normally, nutrition slowly disperses into the bloodstream; when the body is overloaded with food, it has to reroute the resources of the mind and body to dealing with an incoming meal.

 
1. Overeating – Our brains don’t trigger a sense of fullness until well into a meal.In one study those who finished a meal in 9 minutes, rather than 29 minutes, ate 67 more calories–that translates into about 1400 extra calories/week, or about half a pound of weight gain.
2. Blood Sugar, Diabetes, And The Mind – Eating quickly is the surest way to drown your productivity in brain fog. Slow eating levels out the amount of sugar in the blood stream. An hour and half after my HAPIfork meal, my blood sugar was a cool 97 mg/dl (as measured by an over-the-counter blood glucose monitor). In the past, I’ve noticed that a blood sugar of 110 mg/dl is enough to either put me to sleep or put me into a daze (fast eating can spike my blood sugar into the +110 range). Another bonus of eating too quickly: all that extra blood sugar may increase the likelihood of getting diabetes.

The Experience
The device itself is a rumble pack encased in a thick-handled fork. HAPIfork delivers a moderately delightful buzz whenever it comes in contact with the skin, should  individuals take bites faster than user-defined time intervals. I tested out a reasonable setting of 10 seconds in between bites, which was difficult for my naturally fast-eating ways. It only took a few rumbles of my mouth to slow me down. By the end of the meal, I began to unconsciously place my fork into a flat position, rather than holding it like a spear waiting for attack.
The beta prototype still has some kinks to work out: eating a salad confused it, since folded over lettuce would sometimes block the metal from touching my skin. Munching on a big piece of food, too, lights up false positives, because multiple contacts with the lips is, technically, frequent bites. The HAPIfork teams assures me the final product will  have a more polished experience, which includes a website/smartphone app for tracking eating habits and setting goals.
Overall, I’m a fan of the HAPIfork. Eating can be as destructive as it is enriching. For some reason, it’s become socially acceptable to eat like a kid rushing to make time at lunch for recess. We need to slow down.

 HAPItrack

 

The HAPItrack measures steps,
distance, workout time, calories burned
and motivates you to reach your daily
objectives. A 1 to 10 seconds click is all
it takes to brighten your day.

 

 HAPIwatch

The HAPIwatch is an electronic watch
that monitors your sleep and stress
patterns. You wear it on your wrist like an
ordinary watch, and it measures your
heart rate.