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Show HN: OpenNutrition – A free, public nutrition database

opennutrition.app

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Re: Show HN: OpenNutrition – A free, public nutrition database

#91

Post by sswatson »

adamas wrote: post #41
joshdickson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a large disclaimer that states, among other things, "We strive to ensure accuracy and quality using authoritative sources and AI-based validation; however, we make no guarantees regarding completeness, accuracy, or timeliness. Always confirm nutritional data independently when accuracy is critical." on every page on the website where that kind of in-depth data is available.

At that point, if you are not sure a data point is accurate, should you really display it ? You have no proof appart from "The LLM said it was ok" which is kind of poor.

I disagree with the idea that data must be accompanied by a guarantee of accuracy to be used or published. That standard would rule out almost all datasets for which the underlying data is not programmatically generated.

My guess is that this dataset is probably more accurate on the whole than many datasets used by the kinds of calorie-tracking apps that outsource their collection of nutrition information to users. But an analysis would be required.

Regardless, the only workable approach is to describe the provenance of your data and explain what steps have been taken to ensure accuracy. Then anyone who wants to use the data can account for that information.

Re: Show HN: OpenNutrition – A free, public nutrition database

#92

Post by joshdickson »

ratmice wrote: post #89
joshdickson wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I envisioned many lines of inquiry from HN but the idea that a compressed TSV of nutritional data is not a "dataset" (definition: a collection of related sets of information that is composed of separate elements but can be manipulated as a unit by a computer) was unexpected.

FWIW, I like that you include water content, libraries like google's health connect seem to have completely separate data structures for nutrition and hydration.

Thank you :)

Re: Show HN: OpenNutrition – A free, public nutrition database

#94

Post by joshdickson »

yamihere wrote: post #85
joshdickson wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not even the data itself, just the reasoning about the generated data Poor phrasing on my end -- yes, absolutely the end data as well as the reasoning, as the reasoning tends to include the final answer. Maybe I should! Appreciate the feedback.

Thanks again. Mine was an uncharitable interpretation, apologies for that. I appreciate your engagement with critical comments without coming off as defensive or snarky. This looks like a lot of work and good will were poured into it, and I can see how it can be useful to a fitness focused audience. You control the messaging on the site and in your apps, and you make it clear that this is not authoritative data. Ever…

The idea of including that requirement in the license is a good idea and I had not considered it, but I will -- frankly my motivations have been more on the citation side of things such that the need for quality disclaimers is not as great. Thank you for the suggestion.

Re: Show HN: OpenNutrition – A free, public nutrition database

#95

Post by joshdickson »

jonesy827 wrote: post #86
joshdickson wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah that is an embarrassing bug. Mobile safari does not do that. Thank you for the report, looking to see why that is now. Edit: Should be patched in Desktop Safari now.

It's still erroring in Firefox on macOS and Windows. I see a CORS error on the XHR request

Should be back up now, I didn't scale up quickly enough for the traffic. My apologies and thank you for the report.

Re: Show HN: OpenNutrition – A free, public nutrition database

#96

Post by NewJazz »

tmpz22 wrote: post #84
Cheer2171 wrote: post #75

> Final nutritional data is generated by providing a reasoning model with a large corpus of grounding data. The LLM is tasked with creating complete nutritional values, explicitly explaining the rationale behind each value it generates. Outputs undergo rigorous validation steps, including cross-checking with advanced auditing models such as OpenAI’s o1-pro, which has proven especially proficient at performing high-qu…

Imagine how much more efficient government would be if we just generate all the data with LLMs.

Stop. Giving. Them. Ideas.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ABoringDystopia/comments/1jq8kzl/th...

Re: Show HN: OpenNutrition – A free, public nutrition database

#97

Post by TechDebtDevin »

joshdickson wrote: post #83
rmah wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter how accurate the models are, it's not a "data set" (in the scientific sense), it's more of a conclusion set. Maybe the conclusions are spot on. Maybe not. I have no idea.

I envisioned many lines of inquiry from HN but the idea that a compressed TSV of nutritional data is not a "dataset" (definition: a collection of related sets of information that is composed of separate elements but can be manipulated as a unit by a computer) was unexpected.

Ignore them. Congratz on finishing your project!

Re: Show HN: OpenNutrition – A free, public nutrition database

#98

Post by thi2 »

pmichaud wrote: post #79
Cheer2171 wrote: post #75

> Final nutritional data is generated by providing a reasoning model with a large corpus of grounding data. The LLM is tasked with creating complete nutritional values, explicitly explaining the rationale behind each value it generates. Outputs undergo rigorous validation steps, including cross-checking with advanced auditing models such as OpenAI’s o1-pro, which has proven especially proficient at performing high-qu…

[flagged]

Tried it with unsweetened oat milk and the info was off in nearly every col.

Not representable because I dont have US food but since its AI enhanced I cant compare my stuff with the stuff in the "dataset" and be sure thats an Us vs germany thing..

Re: Show HN: OpenNutrition – A free, public nutrition database

#100

Post by NewJazz »

Rooster61 wrote: post #48

Does this have an API? Reason I ask, I would kill to have a dynamic recipe scanner that could plug into recipe databases (namely ones that can accurately scrape recipes from the web) and instantly give you a nutritional rundown of the ingredients, as well as any changes to the nutrition that could occur due to the cooking process. It would make tracking what I eat a breeze, and really give solid insight into the macr…

OpenFoodFacts does and is generally more reputable.

https://openfoodfacts.github.io/openfoodfacts-server/api/

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