🍳 AI Recipe: Instant Answers for “What Should I Eat?”
Upload a menu and get personalized suggestions in seconds using ChatGPT's new o3 image feature
You’re out to eat and hungry. The menu’s packed with options, and you’re endlessly scanning, trying to guess what’s vegetarian, gluten-free, or just something you’ll actually enjoy… and getting hangrier by the minute. Instead of staring a hole through the menu or searching ingredient details online, snap a photo and let ChatGPT help. With its new image analysis feature, you’ll get personalized recommendations (based on your diet, preferences, or goals) in seconds.
Prep Time: 2 minutes
Difficulty Level: Easy
🧂 Ingredients:
A ChatGPT account (image upload works with both free and paid accounts, see Limitations below for more details)
A saved photo (e.g. menu)
A clear question you want to ask about the image
📖 Instructions:
Open ChatGPT & Choose Your Model: Click the dropdown and select a model. Image upload only works with the GPT‑4o model on free accounts. If you have a paid account, I recommend using the o3 model for best results.
Upload the Menu Photo: Take a picture of the menu and upload it to the chat either by pasting it directly or clicking the + icon.
Ask Your Dietary Question: Type something like:
What vegetarian meals can I eat from this menu?Which options are gluten-free?What’s the healthiest choice here?
Review & Refine: If needed, ask follow-up questions. You can ask it to sort, recommend, label, compare, or explain further, like:
Can you rank these by protein content?Which is lowest in carbs?
The content below is usually reserved for paid subscribers, but for a limited time, it's open to everyone. Enjoy the full experience and consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support this newsletter and gain exclusive perks!
🍽️ Serving Suggestions:
Travel Help: Snap travel signs or maps and ask for directions or translations. For example, you can upload a confusing street sign and ask for parking information:
Zoom Background Upgrade: Take a screenshot of your current Zoom setup and add it to a chat with the prompt:
You are an interior designer, based on the attached, please create an image that upgrades the design of my background for Zoom calls, keep the composition of the photo as accurate as possible.You can then use these AI-generated suggestions to purchase background pieces that align with your ideal aesthetic and enhance your real workspace. For more Zoom ideas, check out this recipe.
Visual Brainstorms: Upload handwritten notes or sketches and ask for summaries or action steps:
Reading Recommendations: Upload a shelfie and get your next great read with this prompt:
Here's a picture of the books I've recently read. What are some underrated or lesser talked about books that you think I'd enjoy reading next?
Chef’s Insights: Pro Tips & Limitations
🧑🍳 Pro Tips:
Be Specific with Your Ask: Clear, direct questions get better results. Avoid vague prompts.
Use the Reading Glasses Test: If you’re trying to come up with more ideas on how to use this feature, just ask, “Would grandma use her reading glasses for this?”. If grandma’s squinting at it, ChatGPT can probably help make sense of it—menus, labels, signs, and more.
Highlight Key Areas: Circle or mark parts of the image you want ChatGPT to focus on as this boosts accuracy.
Request Custom Formats: Ask ChatGPT to turn results into a checklist, table, or whatever else suits your goal.
Think Beyond In-Person: This works great for screenshots of delivery app menus, too, not just photos you take at restaurants.
⚠️ Limitations:
Image Quality Matters: Blurry, low-light, or decorative text can confuse the model
No Identity Recognition: ChatGPT won’t identify people or confirm if two images show the same person.
File Size & Type Restrictions: There are several limitations you should keep in mind. You can view the full list here, but these are a couple key ones:
Upload Limits (GPT-4o):
Free tier: 3 files/day
Plus/Pro/Team: 80 files every 3 hours (may be throttled during high demand)
Total Upload Capacity:
Max 20MB per image
Max 20 files per GPT instance
Max 512MB per file
Each user: 10GB total | Each org: 100GB total
Text/doc files: 2M token cap
CSVs/Spreadsheets: ~50MB max
⭐ User Reviews
Have you tried uploading a photo to ChatGPT? Tell us what kind of image you used and what it helped you do—reply and we may feature your tip in a future issue!