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Show HN: Automatic weekly meal planner, also plans your leftovers

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Re: Show HN: Automatic weekly meal planner, also plans your leftovers

#41

Post by GuiA »

smspence wrote: post #38
GuiA wrote: post #29

There's probably a culture clash here but... is this considered a balanced nutritious meal in the US? http://i.imgur.com/cVpnXJB.png I'm French, a country that has a certain reputation for eating healthy, and where a meal is typically: - an "appetizer" (small salad or crudités) - a main course (typically meat/fish + vegetable/starch) - cheese & bread - dessert (often fruit, or rarely something sweet like a slice of c…

How can we know if your typical French meal is balanced or not, since you didn't indicate the portion size of any of those foods?

Idk, portion size seems fairly explicit in my post. This picture sums up nicely what a french meal would look like:

http://i.imgur.com/5XRulJK.png

With the appetizer plate topmost, dessert in the middle, main course at the bottom of the picture.

It's also common for hungry/active people to have a second serving of the main course; a third helping would be rare.

Re: Show HN: Automatic weekly meal planner, also plans your leftovers

#42

Post by smspence »

GuiA wrote: post #33
gertef wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a commonly unbalanced US meal. (and is ~1.5 people's worth of calories.) But it doesn' seem do different from your example: meat, vegetable, dairy, starch, sweet. And the Nutrition guide's recommended protein level is insanely high.

Well in my example, you get 2 servings of vegetable and 2 servings of fruit a day (with potentially 1 or 2 more for breakfast + snack)– here we barely have 2 portions of fruit/vegetable.

Then just add some extra vegetables and fruit, if that's what you want...

Re: Show HN: Automatic weekly meal planner, also plans your leftovers

#43

Post by alexchamberlain »

papa_bear wrote: post #39

The servers are getting hammered right now! If you sign up, the automatic weekly planner starts running right away to make a week of meal plans for you, but it's running very slowly at the moment - sorry about that, and if you give it a couple minutes, it should send you an email when it's done. You can use the in-browser planner to make plans more quickly, but they won't have the leftovers planned out from day to da…

Don't be embarrassed; HN has taken down far simpler, yet more famous sites than yours. I am very impressed it is still standing at all.

Re: Show HN: Automatic weekly meal planner, also plans your leftovers

#44

Post by alexchamberlain »

trhaynes wrote: post #36
GuiA wrote: post #29

There's probably a culture clash here but... is this considered a balanced nutritious meal in the US? http://i.imgur.com/cVpnXJB.png I'm French, a country that has a certain reputation for eating healthy, and where a meal is typically: - an "appetizer" (small salad or crudités) - a main course (typically meat/fish + vegetable/starch) - cheese & bread - dessert (often fruit, or rarely something sweet like a slice of c…

The default (33%/33%/33%) carb/protein/fat split is similar to that proposed by the Zone diet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_diet

I'm guessing most people in Europe would eat (a lot) less fat than 33%.

Re: Show HN: Automatic weekly meal planner, also plans your leftovers

#45

Post by GuiA »

smspence wrote: post #42
GuiA wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in my example, you get 2 servings of vegetable and 2 servings of fruit a day (with potentially 1 or 2 more for breakfast + snack)– here we barely have 2 portions of fruit/vegetable.

Then just add some extra vegetables and fruit, if that's what you want...

I think you're misinterpreting my comment.

My culture and upbringing have given me broad indications on what consists "eating healthily"; here I am seeing a tool made by a citizen of another culture, that claims it will produce healthy meal recommendations.

But the recommendations it gives me are wildly different from my cultural expectations.

All I'm trying to do is understand why there is this discrepancy.

Re: Show HN: Automatic weekly meal planner, also plans your leftovers

#46

Post by papa_bear »

GuiA wrote: post #29

There's probably a culture clash here but... is this considered a balanced nutritious meal in the US? http://i.imgur.com/cVpnXJB.png I'm French, a country that has a certain reputation for eating healthy, and where a meal is typically: - an "appetizer" (small salad or crudités) - a main course (typically meat/fish + vegetable/starch) - cheese & bread - dessert (often fruit, or rarely something sweet like a slice of c…

The algorithm primarily targets the nutrition constraints that you ask for, with only a few other rules about how meals should be structured. It makes more realistic looking plans (I feel) at lower calorie values, but you're right that the meal plan you posted doesn't look great. It would probably suggest more fruits and vegetables if I required all of the necessary vitamins and minerals to be constraints, but in the interest of algorithm speed, I mostly suggest adding a multivitamin to your diet :-) Definitely not ideal, but adding a few vegetables on your own shouldn't change the nutrition too much if you're watching your calories.

I actually built the first version of the site to make it easier for me to gain weight, and my strategy now is to lock a few cups of whole milk into each meal and then tell it to generate around it, giving me much less to cook.

Re: Show HN: Automatic weekly meal planner, also plans your leftovers

#49

Post by smspence »

GuiA wrote: post #41
smspence wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can we know if your typical French meal is balanced or not, since you didn't indicate the portion size of any of those foods?

Idk, portion size seems fairly explicit in my post. This picture sums up nicely what a french meal would look like: http://i.imgur.com/5XRulJK.png With the appetizer plate topmost, dessert in the middle, main course at the bottom of the picture. It's also common for hungry/active people to have a second serving of the main course; a third helping would be rare.

How is that a "French" meal? You can eat those types of foods anywhere... I have had many meals that look exactly like that here in the U.S., both cooked at home and out at restaurants.

Don't believe what you read on Reddit, HN, and other websites that hate Americans. Not all Americans eat McDonald's burgers and fries and other crappy processed food for every meal. We are just like anyone else. Some of us (not all) are healthy and eat very balanced and healthy meals, and some of us are in very good shape physically. On the other hand.... some other Americans (not all) are obese, unhealthy, eat bad food. It's a mixture. Not every American is the same. And there is not one "typical American meal" in my opinion.

Re: Show HN: Automatic weekly meal planner, also plans your leftovers

#50

Post by GuiA »

papa_bear wrote: post #46
GuiA wrote: post #29

There's probably a culture clash here but... is this considered a balanced nutritious meal in the US? http://i.imgur.com/cVpnXJB.png I'm French, a country that has a certain reputation for eating healthy, and where a meal is typically: - an "appetizer" (small salad or crudités) - a main course (typically meat/fish + vegetable/starch) - cheese & bread - dessert (often fruit, or rarely something sweet like a slice of c…

The algorithm primarily targets the nutrition constraints that you ask for, with only a few other rules about how meals should be structured. It makes more realistic looking plans (I feel) at lower calorie values, but you're right that the meal plan you posted doesn't look great. It would probably suggest more fruits and vegetables if I required all of the necessary vitamins and minerals to be constraints, but in the…

Cool, thanks for the reply.

As far as what I asked for, as I replied to another commenter[1], I let the website decide what my caloric intake should be, and I selected "stay at my current weight".

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5640663

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