I like the idea but it's producing a lot of ... unappealing combos like peanut butter and honey ... sandwich? on ... rye? With a random side of red pepper hummus?
I think what's missing is some graph of compatible ingredients per type of food. Things that generally require some companion (what am I eating that hummus with?) You could generate a pizza via compatibility scores. Same with curries, sandwiches, etc.
And of course hinting at the type of macros one might want. 60% of my diet as fat is probably not a good regular day.
But very compelling. I struggle with meal planning and the state of recipes and meals and the seo gamesmanship makes the whole thing very arduous.
Pairings have been tough for us to get right. Your nutrition targets and meal/food filters have the biggest impact on what foods show up together, and then we have some weightings that influence pairings, but relatively minor.
It's also tricky because while some people balk at certain food pairings, others think they're perfectly fine. Our main approach has been to just try to make it easy to swap things out if you don't like a suggestion (on the logged-in planner, you can tell a meal to give you a big list of alternatives to skim through instead of refreshing one at a time).
One thing to try is bumping up the allowed complexity of a meal. Click the 3-dot menu next to the meal's name, edit the settings, and bump it up from Simple to Moderate. Then regenerate the meal to see if you get more appealing results.
In Australia at least, peanut butter and honey sandwiches are a thing. The taste is actually not bad, and it is possibly healthier than peanut butter and jam sandwiches.
This is what I miss about the internet from 15 years ago.
You looked for a recipe back then you'd get a bunch of simple websites with concise instructions that made a fair amount of sense. People wrote it like an old cookbook. Wanted diet advice? Sure there were a few snake oil salesmen but the nutrition information you could find was pretty decent for those people who had put things up.
Today you have a bunch of food entertainers who have turned the entire gambit into such of an utter clown show. You can get a recipe but you'll have to wade through 10 half-page pictures of food that are completely unrelated to what you want to make and clickbait in a scrolling never-ending screen. You can find a video, but instead of it being literally someone's grandma making it with real expertise, it's some 20-something insecure chef emulating what they saw on TV. This level of FUBAR goes way beyond marketing; we have people competing in a race to the bottom.
You try to find a cookbook today, and you've got the same garbage. 90% pictures, 10% text.
"Eat this Much" is just a continuation of this trend; you aren't marketing this as a resource for me to use, if you were, it'd be named something else. The first thing I see when I visit your website isn't something useful. You've got a completely useless webapp, then a bunch of assurance crap below that. If this were a website being shown in the 90's everyone would think you're a scammer. You're marketing this to me like I'm a child and must be instructed on what to do; your brand is looking for guillable people, that's why it's marketed as an instruction, not a tool.
You're doing that because once you have people eating, literally, from your hand, you will !@#! them hard by making marketable suggestions that you will get other companies to pay you top dollar for because they are building relationships with guillable people.
The last thing I need is an app interpreting my cravings for me; It's bad enough you have food companies hiring nutritionists and psychologists to figure out what to put in their products to addict their constituency.
It's a digusting business model and pollutes the information supply for profit.
I struggle with finding food that fits my plans that isn't boring and monotonous. To that end, this seems like a useful endeavor, though I'm not sure if it's all the way there.
Honestly, I think you should give some of the combinations a try.
1. Peanut butter and honey (or brown sugar) sandwiches were my favorite as a kid and nowadays I just ditch the bread
2. Peanut butter can be a substitute for tahini as a hummus ingredient
Heck, I recently tried:
* Pumpkin pie dessert hummus from Costco and loved it. With some strawberries it was gold.
* Peanut butter and bacon cheeseburger
Now when it comes to rye, I think the lack of also there is that it's just not good IMO.
The food choice is US-centric as already pointed out, I want to add that doesn't impact only the macros, but also the prices and availability.
For example foods like Buckwheat and Peanut Butter are hard to find in Italy (at least in my region), and when you find them are very expensive (example Buckwheat is around 2£/KG in the UK and around 15€/KG in Italy).
Regarding the macros, the change of proteins, based on the nation is impressive.
You could add in the receipt the macros of the ingredient we need to use, in this way at the super market I can scan various of them and search the closest one
And being US-centric means a lot of the choices a quite gross and really unappealing for people in other countries. Buttered toast? Peanut butter and honey? Yuck, I'd rather not eat at all.
This. I was excited for it a year or two ago, but even in Australia which tends to be somewhat similar to the US it was difficult to follow it. I'm sure it varies by state too, it's probably what you find in Californian supermarkets or something.
It really needs to separate the dishes by region if it's going to succeed internationally. I'd pay good money for this service if it had the exact cheap ingredients in my local supermarkets.
That one's not common in food in the US, either. A lot more "odd" ingredients are widely available now than used to be in the US, so you can find it without too much trouble, but it's still not something most are familiar with. I cook a fair bit and I've only used it because I decided to try making Breton buckwheat crêpes, and I'm sure I could find other ways to use it but I'd have to go out of my way to do so. Wouldn't be surprised if it's present in a couple regional US cuisines in a minor way (cajun?) but it's not something most people eat regularly, if at all.
I may be missing something but I don’t see the 93% proteins figure, it’s more like 13g per 100g so 13%. Also it would be the same or higher than whey protein. I would have loved that.
Where I live (Trieste) most supermarkets have Peanut Butter.
You can find it also in "ethnic" shops or in organic food shops (in italiano negozi di prodotti biologici).
This is a cool idea that I'd personally love to see work in some form or another.
In my experience, though, the tedium of tracking macros and the like has probably been the biggest obstacle for being consistent. When I cut now, just maintaining some very simple principles like "eat less, eat vegetables, it's OK to feel hungry" has been vastly more useful long-term than weighing food on scales and calculating BMI every week... But maybe that's just me.
A lot of the recipe quantities are unreasonable. This is a common outcome of taking base recipes and scaling them without thinking. For steamed potatoes I got:
* 1 5/8 medium potato
* 5/8 tbsp butter
* 5/8 tsp dill
* 3/8 tsp garlic
* 1/16 dash salt
These aren't real measurements, nor do many of them matter. Only the butter and potatoes matter here and since "medium potato" means basically anything the specific amount is largely worthless. Yes, there are gram amounts below but you are better off rounding to something reasonable (just round the butter down and don't even include measurements for things like dill).
More generally, this feels very much like the HN approach to cooking (there have been many similar tools) rather than a general product with a wide audience. What led you to believe that this is a product that serves a serious need? In my experience, people who know how to cook don't need this and people who don't know how to cook are going to see a lot of these recipes and panic. BlueApron seems to have hit a similar problem, where once their customers learned how to cook they just do it themselves.
Hey! I really like this concept, and I could imagine myself as a paying user for a service like this.
Some feedback:
1. I can't see any information at all about the different membership plans. It says "Get started with a free account", but there's no information about what a free account includes and what other types there are.
2. You mention Google/Facebook remarketing in your privacy policy, which is a gigantic turn-off for me.
I have used this one for a few weeks, several months ago.
At the time, there were 2 main issues:
* The food selection was too US-centric - for example, where I live items like sausages tend to have a different nutritional content compared to their US counterparts. I think these types of food should have localised versions.
* Weird portions once you select Metric: for example there were a lot of foods where the default quantity was 28.34 grams - I suspect because that's an ounce in the US.
This looked really exciting at first and I signed-up immediately, hoping to stop thinking about "what I should cook tonight?". However after seeing an Oreo milkshake suggestion for lunch time I'm not sure how healthy the recipes are.
If the diet selection included a low-sugar option, then it may be much more useful for me.
It would be nice if I could indicate which meals are important to me if I pick fewer than 3 meals a day. Breakfast and lunch is not a winning combination, whereas "that small meal at 10:30 that doesn't really have a name" and "that meal at 5pm that doesn't have a name" would be useful.
This is amazing especially with the vegetarian options. I saw some comments about issues within a meal. I find it to be a creative way to get outside my comfort zone. However I do see 2 meals in the same day that are too similar. Some days have 2 meals with sandwiches for each while others don't even have a sandwich. If you can optimize the algorithm to address this variety issue, I am much more likely to follow it more strictly. Thanks for providing this service!
I wanted to create something like this ~10 years ago when I got into fitness! In fact, a few years later I decided to get serious about it and found out that this had launched and gave up on the idea.
Obviously, it seems super useful as a starting point.
In order to be a real meal planning option however you'd have to optimize for micro-nutrients in the long term, and I'm pretty sure this isn't covered.
I’ve used both this and Platejoy, and I prefer the latter. It may have changed, but Eat This Much would routinely prescribe strange meals to meet desired macro targets. I remember one being a can of tuna, a raw red pepper, and a slice of cheddar.
Do you know how many parts of an insect are in each jar? According to Scientific American, each of us eats about 0.5-1kg of flies, maggots and other bugs a year, hidden in the chocolate we eat, the grains we consume, the peanut butter we spread on toast. According to US regulations (which are easier to access than Australian data), 125g of pasta (a single portion) may contain an average of 125 insect fragments or more, and a cup of raisins can have a maximum of 33 fruit fly eggs. A kilogram of flour probably has 15g of animal product in it, from rodent excreta to weevils to cockroach legs.
What people need is a plan to buy groceries for n days (likely 7 but may be 3, 4 or 1) and a list of meals for each day. That are good. Make it specific to singles and it’ll be really cool.
That's pretty close to what we do - we fill in a calendar with suggested meals to hit your nutrition goals and give you a grocery list, which you can change the # of days on.
It works well for singles, though if you're picky, you'll need to configure the options a bit to get meals that you consistently consider "good". Otherwise you'll likely have to regenerate a few of the meals to make sure everything looks good before shopping.
[+] [-] nkozyra|6 years ago|reply
I think what's missing is some graph of compatible ingredients per type of food. Things that generally require some companion (what am I eating that hummus with?) You could generate a pizza via compatibility scores. Same with curries, sandwiches, etc.
And of course hinting at the type of macros one might want. 60% of my diet as fat is probably not a good regular day.
But very compelling. I struggle with meal planning and the state of recipes and meals and the seo gamesmanship makes the whole thing very arduous.
[+] [-] balt_s|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] papa_bear|6 years ago|reply
It's also tricky because while some people balk at certain food pairings, others think they're perfectly fine. Our main approach has been to just try to make it easy to swap things out if you don't like a suggestion (on the logged-in planner, you can tell a meal to give you a big list of alternatives to skim through instead of refreshing one at a time).
One thing to try is bumping up the allowed complexity of a meal. Click the 3-dot menu next to the meal's name, edit the settings, and bump it up from Simple to Moderate. Then regenerate the meal to see if you get more appealing results.
[+] [-] logicchains|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cookie_monsta|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chooseaname|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fredsanford|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheBobinator|6 years ago|reply
You looked for a recipe back then you'd get a bunch of simple websites with concise instructions that made a fair amount of sense. People wrote it like an old cookbook. Wanted diet advice? Sure there were a few snake oil salesmen but the nutrition information you could find was pretty decent for those people who had put things up.
Today you have a bunch of food entertainers who have turned the entire gambit into such of an utter clown show. You can get a recipe but you'll have to wade through 10 half-page pictures of food that are completely unrelated to what you want to make and clickbait in a scrolling never-ending screen. You can find a video, but instead of it being literally someone's grandma making it with real expertise, it's some 20-something insecure chef emulating what they saw on TV. This level of FUBAR goes way beyond marketing; we have people competing in a race to the bottom.
You try to find a cookbook today, and you've got the same garbage. 90% pictures, 10% text.
"Eat this Much" is just a continuation of this trend; you aren't marketing this as a resource for me to use, if you were, it'd be named something else. The first thing I see when I visit your website isn't something useful. You've got a completely useless webapp, then a bunch of assurance crap below that. If this were a website being shown in the 90's everyone would think you're a scammer. You're marketing this to me like I'm a child and must be instructed on what to do; your brand is looking for guillable people, that's why it's marketed as an instruction, not a tool.
You're doing that because once you have people eating, literally, from your hand, you will !@#! them hard by making marketable suggestions that you will get other companies to pay you top dollar for because they are building relationships with guillable people.
The last thing I need is an app interpreting my cravings for me; It's bad enough you have food companies hiring nutritionists and psychologists to figure out what to put in their products to addict their constituency.
It's a digusting business model and pollutes the information supply for profit.
[+] [-] figo22|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryen|6 years ago|reply
Hey, my 5 year old daughter loves that!
[+] [-] frankish|6 years ago|reply
1. Peanut butter and honey (or brown sugar) sandwiches were my favorite as a kid and nowadays I just ditch the bread 2. Peanut butter can be a substitute for tahini as a hummus ingredient
Heck, I recently tried: * Pumpkin pie dessert hummus from Costco and loved it. With some strawberries it was gold. * Peanut butter and bacon cheeseburger
Now when it comes to rye, I think the lack of also there is that it's just not good IMO.
[+] [-] 1ark|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lopis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DingleBarry|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kderbyma|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whatsmyusername|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nebulous1|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vincentmarle|6 years ago|reply
- Peanut butter + Nutella (add banana for bonus points)
- Peanut butter + chocolate sprinkles
- Strawberry jam + Gouda cheese
Put this on brioche bread... heaven!
[+] [-] WhompingWindows|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s_y_n_t_a_x|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maury91|6 years ago|reply
Regarding the macros, the change of proteins, based on the nation is impressive.
Example: Best cottage cheese I can find in Italy: 7% Carbs, 0% Fats, 93% Proteins https://www.myfitnesspal.com/it/food/calories/naturella-fioc...
Best cottage cheese I can find in UK: 11% Carbs, 26% Fats, 63% Proteins https://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/light-cottage-che...
Best "cottage cheese" I can find in Lithuania: 11% Carbs, 0% Fatas, 89% Proteins https://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/liesa-varske-0-5-...
You could add in the receipt the macros of the ingredient we need to use, in this way at the super market I can scan various of them and search the closest one
[+] [-] froh42|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ShinTakuya|6 years ago|reply
It really needs to separate the dishes by region if it's going to succeed internationally. I'd pay good money for this service if it had the exact cheap ingredients in my local supermarkets.
[+] [-] shantly|6 years ago|reply
That one's not common in food in the US, either. A lot more "odd" ingredients are widely available now than used to be in the US, so you can find it without too much trouble, but it's still not something most are familiar with. I cook a fair bit and I've only used it because I decided to try making Breton buckwheat crêpes, and I'm sure I could find other ways to use it but I'd have to go out of my way to do so. Wouldn't be surprised if it's present in a couple regional US cuisines in a minor way (cajun?) but it's not something most people eat regularly, if at all.
[+] [-] tarsinge|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alberto_ol|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mellowdream|6 years ago|reply
In my experience, though, the tedium of tracking macros and the like has probably been the biggest obstacle for being consistent. When I cut now, just maintaining some very simple principles like "eat less, eat vegetables, it's OK to feel hungry" has been vastly more useful long-term than weighing food on scales and calculating BMI every week... But maybe that's just me.
This solution might make for a nice compromise.
[+] [-] papa_bear|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] appleiigs|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UncleMeat|6 years ago|reply
* 1 5/8 medium potato
* 5/8 tbsp butter
* 5/8 tsp dill
* 3/8 tsp garlic
* 1/16 dash salt
These aren't real measurements, nor do many of them matter. Only the butter and potatoes matter here and since "medium potato" means basically anything the specific amount is largely worthless. Yes, there are gram amounts below but you are better off rounding to something reasonable (just round the butter down and don't even include measurements for things like dill).
More generally, this feels very much like the HN approach to cooking (there have been many similar tools) rather than a general product with a wide audience. What led you to believe that this is a product that serves a serious need? In my experience, people who know how to cook don't need this and people who don't know how to cook are going to see a lot of these recipes and panic. BlueApron seems to have hit a similar problem, where once their customers learned how to cook they just do it themselves.
[+] [-] BitwiseFool|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielskogly|6 years ago|reply
Some feedback:
1. I can't see any information at all about the different membership plans. It says "Get started with a free account", but there's no information about what a free account includes and what other types there are.
2. You mention Google/Facebook remarketing in your privacy policy, which is a gigantic turn-off for me.
3. Regenerating a meal while hovering over a food item causes this bug to happen: https://send.firefox.com/download/476d36ae77d82097/#0LA0xL7u...
[+] [-] Pfhreak|6 years ago|reply
1) Don't require me to choose between Male/Female. Let me leave that blank if I'd prefer.
2) If I put 6 in the 'feet' in height, and nothing in the inches, it probably means I'm 6 feet even. Don't make me go back and type in the 0.
3) Alliums (garlic, onion, leeks, etc) are a common intolerance you might want to consider adding to your list. Mushrooms also?
4) The vegetables list is not alphabetized (sprouts appears dead in the middle of the list)
5) Why is Sugar in the 'Grains' category?
[+] [-] mastazi|6 years ago|reply
* The food selection was too US-centric - for example, where I live items like sausages tend to have a different nutritional content compared to their US counterparts. I think these types of food should have localised versions.
* Weird portions once you select Metric: for example there were a lot of foods where the default quantity was 28.34 grams - I suspect because that's an ounce in the US.
[+] [-] alkank|6 years ago|reply
If the diet selection included a low-sugar option, then it may be much more useful for me.
[+] [-] TheRealPomax|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orky56|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sushisource|6 years ago|reply
EX: This breakfast
The way it starts just adding more servings of things instead of more variety is a bit amusing[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
A large Show HN in 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5640336
[+] [-] inertiatic|6 years ago|reply
Obviously, it seems super useful as a starting point. In order to be a real meal planning option however you'd have to optimize for micro-nutrients in the long term, and I'm pretty sure this isn't covered.
[+] [-] g00gler|6 years ago|reply
Anyone know how to fix that?
Edit: even if I pick 3 meals, it comes up with a snack. I just want breakfast and dinner, is that bad?
[+] [-] chronicler|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flurie|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damiananders|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yohannparis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericd|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamwil|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] treve|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] projektfu|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] papa_bear|6 years ago|reply
It works well for singles, though if you're picky, you'll need to configure the options a bit to get meals that you consistently consider "good". Otherwise you'll likely have to regenerate a few of the meals to make sure everything looks good before shopping.