Food Image Recognition Based on Anti-Noise Learning and Covariance Feature Enhancement

Food image recognition is a key research area in food computing, with applications in dietary assessment, menu analysis, and nutrition monitoring. However, imaging devices and environmental factors introduce noise, limiting classification performance. To address this, we propose a food image recognition method based on anti-noise learning and covariance feature enhancement. Specifically, we design a Noise Adaptive Recognition Module (NARM), which incorporates noisy images during training and treats denoising as an auxiliary task to enhance noise invariance and recognition accuracy. To mitigate the adverse effects of noise and strengthen the representation of small eigenvalues, we introduce Eigenvalue-Enhanced Global Covariance Pooling (EGCP) into NARM. Furthermore, we develop a Weighted Multi-Granularity Fusion (WMF) method to improve feature extraction. Combined with the Progressive Temperature-Aware Feature Distillation (PTAFD) strategy, our approach optimizes model efficiency without adding overhead to the backbone. Experimental results demonstrate that our model achieves state-of-the-art performance on the ETH Food-101 and Vireo Food-172 datasets. Specifically, it reaches a Top-1 accuracy of 92.57% on ETH Food-101, outperforming existing methods, and it also delivers strong results in Top-5 on ETH Food-101 and both Top-1 and Top-5 on Vireo Food-172. These findings confirmed the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach in real-world food image recognition.