Image: Courtesy of LG Electronics

When we first heard of the "diet-friendly fridge" that LG unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, we imagined an appliance that would scold us (or lock us out completely) whenever we tried to sneak a late-night snack. But this refrigerator is much more helpful than that. It allows you to program heath profiles of everyone in your house into an internal computer, and then recommends meal plans based on who needs to lower their sodium intake, who's counting calories, and who's watching their cholesterol. It also informs you when the milk is about to expire, recommends nutritious last-minute dishes you can make using ingredients you have on hand, and helps you keep track of what low-cal items are running low so you can either buy them online (using the LCD panel on the door) or send a grocery list to your phone.

LG says the fridge will be available in the US this summer for a suggested retail price of $3,299. This is at the high end (refrigerators range anywhere from $350 for a junior stacked fridge to over $4,000 for gourmet or custom models), and there's no guarantee that the suggested recipes are lip-smackingly delicious. But the thing we appreciate about this fridge is that when you think about it, most futuristic appliances are of the don't-lift-a-finger model (e.g., the industrious, overly helpful robots in WALL-E that turned humans into lazy, squishy blobs). We applaud the idea of a kitchen appliance that can potentially help make our lives not just easier, but less squishy-blob-ish.