In case tracking your heart rate, steps and sleep patterns wasn't enough, you can now officially monitor how many times you pick up your fork during a meal. Because when it comes to a heaping bowl of mac and cheese, no one can self-control the speed at which the utensil moves from dish to mouth, right? Right. Enter the HAPIfork, an electronic fork that helps you track your eating habits by vibrating when you scarf down your breakfast, lunch or dinner too quickly. Recently, a writer for The Cut documented her trials, tribulations and successes with the Bluetooth-enabled, food-monitoring utensil and it was as entertaining-yet-sad as you believed it would be.
The HAPIfork aims to help you eat slower, digest your food better and as a result, lose weight. In addition to recording your "fork servings" (every time you bring food to your mouth), the HAPIfork also measures how long it takes you to eat your meal and the intervals between "fork servings." It alerts you with lights and vibrations when you eat too fast. You can then upload your data via USB or Bluetooth to track your progress. They've also got a coaching program that claims to help "improve your eating behavior."
The most difficult part about using the gadget for The Cut's Jessica Roy was remembering to use it. Having to mindfully pull it out at restaurants, the dinner table, or the couch while watching RHONY proved to be challenging. Eventually, she got the hang of it. But when she did, she realized how hungry she still was after meals, although her success rate was high. Still, while she wasn't sure if the HAPIfork was actually functioning correctly, Roy felt like it was teaching her better eating habits. Roy wrote: "I actually do think I’m learning to eat slower. Still, the fork’s measurements seem so off — completely missing when I sneak fast bites, and zapping me when I haven’t even taken a bite at all — that I don’t know who to trust anymore."
At the end of her week-long trial, Roy was happy to discover that she had an 85 percent success rate. Perhaps it was the fact that she wasn't as fast an eater as she thought she was or because eating with a huge electronic fork at restaurants was like public-shaming. Her verdict: It's a little TMI and she probably won't be using it again in the future.
If you're still interested and believe you could benefit from the the tyrannical utensil, it's available for purchase on HAPI's site for $99. The fork (which is about the same size as a regular fork, just bulkier) comes in black, white, blue, pink and green, so you can color-coordinate with your outfit, of course. Although it may seem ridiculous, the HAPIfork has a lot of support — it raised well above its $100K Kickstarter goal. I'm sure there will be many HAPIforks making appearances piercing small side salads between shows at this NYFW.
Images: © orelphoto - Fotolia.com; HAPI
