How many bites do YOU take per day? New device helps you keep track...with 100 the recommended amount for losing weight 

• Researchers calculated the average number of calories per bite to be 17 for men and 11 for women
  

• This translates to 1,700 calories for men and 1,100 calories for women - a number that represents a low-calorie diet  

By Catherine Townsend For Mailonline

Published: 14:23 EST, 12 August 2014 | Updated: 16:26 EST, 12 August 2014

Dieters already track calories and steps, and now researchers have developed a device that they can wear on their wrists to count the number of bites they take of their food.

Researchers at South Carolina's Clemson University say that The Bite Monitor measures subtle wrist motions to detect bites with what they claim is 90per cent accuracy - and helps users get to the 'optimum' 100. 

'It's a little bit like a pedometer for your mouth,' Eric Muth, a psychology professor who created the device with computer-engineering professor Adam Hoover, told The Wall Street Journal.

Counting chews: The Bite Monitor will be worn on the wrist and measure the number of times the mouth opens and closes with 90per cent accuracy

To calculate the ideal amount, the experts tracked the number of bites of 77 people over two weeks, according to a study published in March in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

The researchers calculated the average number of calories per bite was 17 for men and 11 for women, which would mean that people taking 100 bites a day would take in roughly 1,700 calories for men and 1,100 calories for women - a number that represents a low-calorie diet according to National Institutes of Health standards. 

The concept will soon be tested in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, and a commercial version could be ready in about a year and is expected to cost about $195.

Several companies have gotten in on the act: Mando Group AB, a Stockholm health-care company, has developed a talking plate that measures how fast you eat and assesses fullness that is expected to hit the market in the fall.

Keeping track: The Bite Monitor counts bites via movement of the user's wrist

The HAPIfork, a device that flashes red if a person's bites are spaced apart by less than 10 seconds, launched last year by Hong Kong-based Hapilabs Ltd. and is sold online for $99.

'If you're eating too fast, you're probably not chewing and enjoying your food very well and you're probably going to be more likely to eat too much,' Michael Jensen, an endocrinologist and obesity expert at the Mayo Clinic, told the Wall Street Journal.

In a study by Chinese researchers published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2011, people who chewed their food 40 times a mouthful—an unusually high number—rather than 15 times ate fewer calories and had lower levels of the hormone ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, and higher levels of a hormone that reduces appetite.

Dr Jensen expressed skepticism about the device, saying that a bite of pizza is very different from a bite of salad - and some take bigger bites than others.

But researchers continue to develop a more sophisticated version of the Bite Monitor that would also monitor intervals between bites. The team hopes to launch the device in about a year. 

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