Inspiration
We've all heard the phrase "abs are built in the kitchen." However, it's difficult to determine the optimal recipes to stay in shape and get all your daily vitamins and nutrients. Also, as college students, we don't always have the time to diligently track our macros or to search up new, healthy recipes to try. So we came up with Youtrition, a website to make healthy eating easier and more accessible to the public.
What it does
Simply take a picture of your fridge, pantry, or wherever your food is stored, and we'll give you specific nutrients and vitamins that you're lacking in, so that you can make better health decisions. We'll also provide you with recommendations for potential recipes that contain ingredients you currently have, as well as recipes that are plentiful with nutrients and vitamins that you're deficient in. Overall, we want to make your diet healthier while also bringing you new recipes to try.
How we built it
For the data, we used nutrient information across over 40 categories including vitamins A-K to important minerals such as zinc and calcium. Additionally, we cleaned our recipes dataset to ensure that we were including diverse recipes and naming them properly. For the backend, we utilized a Python Flask server to handle our logic in determining deficiencies in the user's diet and optimal recipes to improve these deficiencies, as well as to communicate with the frontend. Additionally, we leveraged the Clarifai API for food recognition software and analyzing images. For our frontend, we employed React.js to create a visually appealing website that would fetch data from our Flask backend through REST API requests.
Challenges we ran into
Regarding the data cleaning step, there were multiple inconsistencies in the data that led to incorrect results. Therefore, we ran into a challenge of actually cleaning the data so that our recommendations would be accurate.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud of connecting our backend to our frontend while also ensuring that no data was lost in the communications. We're proud that we incorporated multiple different solutions to our project, allowing for greater versatility and options for the user experience.
What we learned
We learned about REST API protocols, Python Flask, and in general, part of the software development life cycle, especially the importance of testing to determine areas to improve.
What's next for Youtrition
We want to improve our user experience by offering different filters and considerations when we suggest recipes to the user. For example, we want to filter recipes by cooking time, cuisine, as well as dietary restrictions/allergies. Overall, we just want to focus on expanding our functionality while still staying attached to our mission of bringing healthy eating to a wider audience.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.