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Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

spe.lt

51–60 of 63 posts

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#54
This could be the seed of something fantastic, IMHO. I'm trying to gain some bulk, and was using the "leading" product (MFP), but stopped because their data is: absolutely filthy via redundant user-submitted info, oriented towards companies rather than simple fresh home-cooking, poor handling of units (should be agnostic with internal conversion), and has friction at every layer of the experience.

Even with basically no features, this is probably easier to adapt into something that I might use.

Part of the problem with calorie/nutrition tracking is that use-cases conflict. I guess this could either become more opinionated, have multiple opinionated structures built on top of it, or just stay lean.

Interested in seeing where this goes, would follow a dev blog.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that it matters if it is added, I can see the rationale behind this. Generally when people are following a program, depending on the program and the cycle (bulking or cutting), there is a set amount of proteins one should consume (1.5g/lb of body weight, 1g/lb of body weight etc.) and the remaining calories are to be attained from carbs/fats in some ratio (which in some cases might not even be defined, but left t…

True. But often I'm concerned with a specific macro, as in, "hey I need 20g more carbs today." The macro ratios of individual food items doesn't really help when calculating the total day ratios.

Thanks for the suggestion. I agree, I think I could improve how details are displayed more effectively anyways.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#56

100g white rice - 8% protein (2g). I assume the reason for this is because its cooked and its taking into account water content but it feels unintuitive. Also it then doesnt tell me specifically how much carbs/fat there is, just a percentage. If people are going to use this for quick checks for specific diets it won't be all that useful. In fact it's probably worth just using the percentages for the colour bars and o…

The percentage bar is % energy content. Maybe there is a way to make that more clear. Displaying things in terms of weight percentages is misleading because the body burns a set amount of calories, not a set amount of food.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#57
post #54

This could be the seed of something fantastic, IMHO. I'm trying to gain some bulk, and was using the "leading" product (MFP), but stopped because their data is: absolutely filthy via redundant user-submitted info, oriented towards companies rather than simple fresh home-cooking, poor handling of units (should be agnostic with internal conversion), and has friction at every layer of the experience. Even with basically…

Thanks! I am pondering how I want to take this, but I want it to stay pretty lean because I like it more and it's faster to develop. I'll consider a dev blog, probably just in the form of a more comprehensive about page.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#58

Wow--I really clicked with this immediately--super intuitive. Also, holy crap is it fast--instant results. Some initial reactions/suggestions: - I want to be able to edit entries in a list in-line. When I looked at it on my Android phone, each word's link was separated which made me think I could click each element individually to change it in place vs. having to re-enter it on the right panel. Think of it like Googl…

Thank you! These are all great suggestions. I am probably just going to go down the line and add most of these. I want to stray away from user accounts because they take time and resources, but I'm not sure if that's the right call. I'm erring on the side of improving the core functionality before the user accounts. The list of lists is also a great idea, that should probably tie in with user accounts.

FYI you can enter custom foods (primitively) by typing e.g. 500, 20g, 30g, 37g. This definitely should be improved in the future though.

Pics, or some clip-art style stuff would be a good idea for giving more feedback on what is entered. The larger idea of pictures is good but I'm not going to pursue it right now.

Data source is USDA along with a bunch of other various sources that I scraped. I believe scraping is 100% legal here because nutrition labels are not proprietary.

I will add an about page, that is a good idea. Backend is Python/MySQL on DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean was a hassle (not DO itself, but just getting the server set up) but I have been learning a lot. It's fast because I spent a long time optimizing how queries were analyzed and the MySQL queries themselves.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#59

Wow--I really clicked with this immediately--super intuitive. Also, holy crap is it fast--instant results. Some initial reactions/suggestions: - I want to be able to edit entries in a list in-line. When I looked at it on my Android phone, each word's link was separated which made me think I could click each element individually to change it in place vs. having to re-enter it on the right panel. Think of it like Googl…

For how fast this is: Websockets! I was playing around with it, watching the network traffic. You'll see you get 101'd (Switching Protocols) to spe.lt:8080. If you hit that URL, you'll get a default page that says: AutobahnPython 0.10.4 I am not Web server, but a WebSocket Endpoint. You can talk to me using the WebSocket protocol. You can see a little bit more in main.js as well. As for the backend, it's looking like…

Thank you! Websockets speed it up a little, about ~20-50 ms. I am a fan of open source, I would consider open sourcing part of the backend if I can turn it into a library that is useable.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#60
post #54

This could be the seed of something fantastic, IMHO. I'm trying to gain some bulk, and was using the "leading" product (MFP), but stopped because their data is: absolutely filthy via redundant user-submitted info, oriented towards companies rather than simple fresh home-cooking, poor handling of units (should be agnostic with internal conversion), and has friction at every layer of the experience. Even with basically…

Thanks! I am pondering how I want to take this, but I want it to stay pretty lean because I like it more and it's faster to develop. I'll consider a dev blog, probably just in the form of a more comprehensive about page.

Well, anything with an RSS feed would be great. I don't know about others, but it's my preferred way to keep up to date on software that I use/am interested in. I do have recurring "check on [url] tasks" but eh.
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