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Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

feastgenius.com

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Re: Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

#11

Post by jv22222 »

Nice work.

Since you've got this far I'll tell you about an idea I've had in the back of my mind for years:

1) Slurp in as many recipes as possible from the internet.

2) Create a way to build a Food Framework by having a whitelist, and/or black list of ingredients.

So, for example, a great way to eat if you have diabetes is plant based low fat.

In this case you could create that Food Framework by whitelisting all vegetables and grains.

Or let's say you wanted a paleo diet, then you could blacklist grains.

Or vegan, blacklist meat, dairy, eggs, etc.

Or no peanuts (for allergies etc)

3) Save your Food Framework and then the site only shows recipes based on that framework.

I like the idea because

1) It can appeal to lots of niche groups who don't have great options for something like that.

2) If you stick to the right food framework for you it could help you get healthy, loose weight, etc.

Anyway, great work. Features you have there are great already.

Re: Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

#12

Post by x86mitch »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #5
x86mitch wrote: post #2

Some Background: Within the last year, I started down the route of eating out less and being more conscientious of what I was cooking. Google searches are a pretty good resource for finding recipes with one caveat, you can't store the recipes. I would save my favorites to a folder in my browser, but eventually, that folder became 120+ recipes links and ver time consuming to filter through when I wanted to make someth…

This is a clever website! I like it. One thing that would be nice is letting members directly download some sort of collection / list- preferably with formatting- so that if your site ever goes poof everyone doesn't lose all their data. That being said, I do like this idea, and will see if I can introduce my mom to the site in a bit. How do you intend to keep this site alive long-term?

I appreciate the feedback. I'll add it to my list of things to do in the next version of updates. How would you like to get that information, in csv format or something else?

> How do you intend to keep this site alive long-term? Currently, the site is being hosted on Heroku so I can scale it as needed. I'll likely move it to AWS in the nearish future, but for now, Heroku is doing the trick. As far as longevity goes I do daily DB backups so in the case of an issue I can do a restore. If the site picks up in popularity I could also move to doing hourly backups.

Re: Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

#13

Post by matthuggins »

jv22222 wrote: post #11

Nice work. Since you've got this far I'll tell you about an idea I've had in the back of my mind for years: 1) Slurp in as many recipes as possible from the internet. 2) Create a way to build a Food Framework by having a whitelist, and/or black list of ingredients. So, for example, a great way to eat if you have diabetes is plant based low fat. In this case you could create that Food Framework by whitelisting all veg…

Sounds like the app I'm building now. :)

Re: Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

#14

Post by x86mitch »

swsieber wrote: post #9

Ha. I started working on something similar recently. Many of the current sites are hard to use, so it seems the space could use some fresh contenders. So kudos, it looks nice - I hope you find success.

Thank you! I think theres a lot of improvement that can be done in the space. Reach out to me if you want any advice on helpful api's I came across when building feastgenius. I'll be more than happy to chat :)

Re: Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

#15

Post by swalsh »

I ended up building my own solution to this problem too (though mine is not open to public)

The main thing I wanted to optimize was menu planning. So I wrote a genetic algorithm which will generate a menu, add the score, mutate the menu in some way, and iterate. In my database I have a rough price per ingredient, and my families enjoyment of the recipe (though I have kind of a lagging gradient which reduces the score per recipe to prevent duplication). I also have included in my algorithm what I call slots. So something like a lasagna will take 4 slots where as a stir fry will be 1 slot. I sync my schedule and break it down to slots. This allows the algorithm to fit the recipe to the time available. I dont score slots though otherwise short recipes always win.

Since the algorithm optimizes based on the week, but keeps a running inventory it's pretty good at maximizing my grocery bill and family enjoyment. My average grocery bill is between $40-$60 a week. And I cook 5 times a week.

Re: Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

#16

Post by jborichevskiy »

x86mitch wrote: post #12
HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a clever website! I like it. One thing that would be nice is letting members directly download some sort of collection / list- preferably with formatting- so that if your site ever goes poof everyone doesn't lose all their data. That being said, I do like this idea, and will see if I can introduce my mom to the site in a bit. How do you intend to keep this site alive long-term?

I appreciate the feedback. I'll add it to my list of things to do in the next version of updates. How would you like to get that information, in csv format or something else? > How do you intend to keep this site alive long-term? Currently, the site is being hosted on Heroku so I can scale it as needed. I'll likely move it to AWS in the nearish future, but for now, Heroku is doing the trick. As far as longevity goes…

Depending on how you're sourcing the recipes, a simple HTML-to-markdown conversion might work.

Here's one that I found but there are quite a few out there:

https://domchristie.github.io/turndown/

Re: Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

#17

Post by x86mitch »

matthuggins wrote: post #13
jv22222 wrote: post #11

Nice work. Since you've got this far I'll tell you about an idea I've had in the back of my mind for years: 1) Slurp in as many recipes as possible from the internet. 2) Create a way to build a Food Framework by having a whitelist, and/or black list of ingredients. So, for example, a great way to eat if you have diabetes is plant based low fat. In this case you could create that Food Framework by whitelisting all veg…

Sounds like the app I'm building now. :)

Awesome! If you want to chat feel free to reach out to me. There are some really good api's out there to help speed up the process.

Re: Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

#18

Post by x86mitch »

swalsh wrote: post #15

I ended up building my own solution to this problem too (though mine is not open to public) The main thing I wanted to optimize was menu planning. So I wrote a genetic algorithm which will generate a menu, add the score, mutate the menu in some way, and iterate. In my database I have a rough price per ingredient, and my families enjoyment of the recipe (though I have kind of a lagging gradient which reduces the score…

This sounds like something I would use if it were public. It would be awesome If I could swap recipes from the plan. For example, if I didn't feel like having stir fry I could swap it out for a meal with similar points.

Re: Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

#19

Post by jv22222 »

matthuggins wrote: post #13
jv22222 wrote: post #11

Nice work. Since you've got this far I'll tell you about an idea I've had in the back of my mind for years: 1) Slurp in as many recipes as possible from the internet. 2) Create a way to build a Food Framework by having a whitelist, and/or black list of ingredients. So, for example, a great way to eat if you have diabetes is plant based low fat. In this case you could create that Food Framework by whitelisting all veg…

Sounds like the app I'm building now. :)

Some brand ideas I had.

Either if you (x86mitch / matthuggins) are welcome to them if of interest:

Nutrition Works

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iyvai1jbredx6n9/Screenshot%202019-...

Nutrition Engine

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hchcz4vciik1w28/Screenshot%202019-...

Re: Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this

#20

Post by swalsh »

x86mitch wrote: post #18
swalsh wrote: post #15

I ended up building my own solution to this problem too (though mine is not open to public) The main thing I wanted to optimize was menu planning. So I wrote a genetic algorithm which will generate a menu, add the score, mutate the menu in some way, and iterate. In my database I have a rough price per ingredient, and my families enjoyment of the recipe (though I have kind of a lagging gradient which reduces the score…

This sounds like something I would use if it were public. It would be awesome If I could swap recipes from the plan. For example, if I didn't feel like having stir fry I could swap it out for a meal with similar points.

I've thought about making it public, but it's highly optimized for me... also therea no gui. It's just a command line app in python. I could make it open source though. It would be neat to see how other people modify it.
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