
Show HN: App creates a meal plan that satisfies your nutrition constraints  - bumbledraven
http://eatthismuch.com
======
cperciva
It told me I should eat a minimum of 118.99999999999999 grams of protein.

I may bill my customers in picodollars, but I don't eat food in femtograms...

~~~
papa_bear
Oof yeah, I've got some rounding errors pretty much throughout the app that I
need to fix. Hopefully none in the payment system :) (thanks for that, stripe)

~~~
samstave
Funny that your UID is Papa_Bear.. and you are having difficulty finding a
setting that is "just right"

------
papa_bear
Hey guys! I made the site and someone brought the post to my attention. I'm
out right now and probably won't be able to reply to any comments tonight, but
of course all of your feedback is incredibly valuable to me and I'll try to
reply ASAP.

~~~
forensic
My first few tries were wonky, but after adding more cooking time the
suggestions came out GREAT!

Extremely well done! I've bookmarked it and will be back.

------
Swizec
I need a way to tell it that I want my calories to come from 60% carbs, 20%
protein and 20% fat.

I also want it to include protein in every meal.

And as few simple carbs as possible. Fruit is fine-ish, but no processed
sugar. Bread-like things should be limited to whole grain if at all possible.

How do I do that?

~~~
lrs
Kind of a derail, but would you care to share the rationale behind the
60/20/20 macro ratio?

~~~
Swizec
I exercise a lot -ish, with the goal of increasing my lean weight.

I need the carbs for energy so I can train, think and not sleep a lot. Because
next to training, I also keep a somewhat busy freelancing schedule.

I need the protein for building muscle mass.

And I need the fat because fat burns in fat and you can't get leaner without
consuming fat.

The idea is that you can't digest more than X amount of protein per day anyway
(so 20% seems okay), you want fat, but too much fat will amke you fat (so 20%
seems okay) and 60% carbs is pretty much what's left.

My biggest problem right now is that I don't eat enough carbs, but do eat too
much fat. Protein is going pretty well.

Because here's the tricky part, once you let go of simple carbs (white flour,
processed sugar etc.) it becomes really really really difficult to eat enough
carbs. And a lot if not most of high protein foods (especially animal protein)
are also high in fat.

For instance, an egg is something like 33% protein, 63% fat and 3% carbs.

PS: I got the 60-20-20 advice from Scooby ->
<http://scoobysworkshop.com/nutrition/>

------
DannoHung
I'm not drinking 4 cups of whole milk for breakfast.

I'm probably never going to eat a cup of almonds and some celery for lunch...

I think you need to put some serious work into making sure that each
suggestion is appetizing as opposed to rummaging through the pantry and
finding something that technically meets the requirements.

~~~
danielhunt
There's a sliding scale for this sort of thing For instance: I would happily
drink 4 cups (which sounds to me like approx 1litre ... I really dislike 'cup'
measurements) of whole milk every morning

~~~
bumbledraven
_I would happily drink [a liter] of whole milk every morning_

Same here, plus you could throw in some stevia & cocoa to make it chocolate
milk without adding much extra energy.

~~~
danielhunt
Off topic for the thread but seeing as you highlighted it: isn't 'liter' the
US spelling, while 'litre' is the (correct) UK one? (I'm in Ireland, and tend
to cringe when I see 'Americanisms' :( )

~~~
nkohari
Just because it's "litre" in the UK and "liter" in the US doesn't make one
correct and one incorrect. The latter is the correct spelling in American
English.

------
te_chris
8 slices of bacon in a BLT (one of the suggested recipes)? Jesus! I knew
Americans ate big portions but that's crazy!

~~~
lsc
1 slice of pan-fried bacon is under 50 calories. If that's the meat in my
sandwich, yeah, I think 8 sounds pretty reasonable.

on the other hand, that's a lot of salt. nearly 200mg of sodium per slice. so
yeah, if you are watching your sodium intake? probably a bad idea. But
calorie-wise, completely reasonable.

~~~
robinduckett
You can limit the sodium intake on the options page

------
bumbledraven
I (the submitter) didn't make this, but it's a neat idea, nicely executed. You
can set your own nutrient targets, such as, "I want at least 150 g of protein
per day" or "I need between 50 and 100 g of carbohydrates", and avoid food
groups such as grains (for paleo diets) or meat (for vegetarians).

~~~
switz
Then why did you prepend "Show HN:" to the title? "Show HN:" is used to show
off work that you've done. Otherwise every post would be a "Show HN:".

~~~
bumbledraven
I thought "Show HN" was for links that went directly to a webapp, as opposed
to an article. Thanks for the correction.

------
manmal
I would love the option to not constrain on calories, but (also?) on sugar and
starch. This study found that cutting carbohydrates proves more effective than
cutting calories in both lowering blood sugar and losing weight (losing weight
is only a side note since the study is about diabetes):
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090105175326.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090105175326.htm)

Low-carb diets do work very well for me, but choice of food is really
restricted - at least at first sight. I'm sure there are more possibilities
than the few I eat every week, and it would be cool if a tool like
swole.me/eatthismuch could generate that for me (I read that Tim Ferriss will
publish a cook book soon, but that's not the same) :)

------
jwblackwell
I like it. It would be nice to be able to refresh the entire day's meal, I
know you can hit generate again but I spent a minute looking for a "refresh
all" button and I'm sure others might as well. Perhaps at the bottom after the
user has scrolled down.

Another key (IMO) perhaps paid feature should be the ability to exclude
ingredients.

I'm allergic to peanuts for example, plus plenty of people just outright
dislike certain foods so it would be nice to save them the hassle and exclude
them. Also the inverse of this, a favourite food option, would be really nice.

Edit: Just seen the food filter, this works for the exclude but a favourite
food option might be good still.

------
Pfhreak
If this could build a week at a time I would never stop using it.

~~~
lessnonymous
Absolutely agree, but with one high-value request: If Monday needs half a
lettuce, Tuesday needs to use the other half. By the end of the week I don't
want a fridge full of leftovers.

------
Bluem00
The UI gets in the way of an interesting product. Nothing a little user
testing couldn't solve, though!

I thought I'd suggest that you remove the underline from all of the lines at
the top of the page, as it makes them all appear to be links and reduces
readability. They will be just as prominent without that decoration, and it
will actually make your sign up link _more_ visible.

You may want to consider moving the sign up link to the entire phrase: "save
your meal plans and make a grocery list ". People will probably click on that
more often than the non-descriptive phrase "Sign Up". The latter phrase
requires additional effort on the part of the user to read to text next to it,
remember the sign up link, and make the decision to go back to the sign up
link at the beginning of the phrase. It's worth a/b testing.

Interesting site!

~~~
papa_bear
For some reason the underline hadn't been showing up on my laptop and I had to
check it out on my phone when you mentioned it to actually see it. Should be
fixed now.

------
Sakes
I've created an account. Saved a meal plan. Now I want to generate a grocery
shopping list, but it appears you can only do that with a paid account. I've
been looking for an app to do this for quite a while.

Could you post an example of what a generated shopping list looks like?

Edit: Thanks chrishas35

~~~
chrishas35
Looks like there are samples now available on the Registration page.

Sample Grocery List:
[https://www.eatthismuch.com/static_files/images/sample_groce...](https://www.eatthismuch.com/static_files/images/sample_grocery_list.png)
Sample Meal Plan:
[https://www.eatthismuch.com/static_files/images/sample_meal_...](https://www.eatthismuch.com/static_files/images/sample_meal_plan.png)

------
oacgnol
For context, this is the next iteration of <http://swole.me/>.

It's a neat tool for getting a starting meal plan going, but some people have
complained that the food variety is lacking. I can't eat only Greek yogurt for
every meal.

~~~
bumbledraven
_I can't eat only Greek yogurt for every meal._

Interesting. What nutritional requirements did you enter to give that result?

~~~
oacgnol
In my current meal plan, on my workout days I minimalize fat intake and
maximize carbs/protein in a 40/60 split - the calculator suggests Greek yogurt
or fish chowder for nearly every meal. Obviously, this is more on the extreme
end of diet planning and arguably I wouldn't have much of a use for it since I
already have my own specialized plan.

~~~
ericd
I think it might just need more recipes. He added recipes fairly recently, and
he's still building those up, so it might have limited options right now for
cases with very specific constraints. Also, Greek yogurt is kind of a wonder
food when you need high protein and low fat :-)

------
ColinWright
For reference, the "Generate" button does nothing on

    
    
        Firefox 2.0.0.11
        Debian 4.0
        Version: Eee PC 1.0.1
        Build Info: 2007-10-19 13:03 
    

Yes, I know that's really old, but it's what I'm using on the road (for
complicated reasons).

I'll try your app later on a rather more modern system - it looks interesting.

 _Added in edit: Now had a look - really good. Will investigate more later,
but I can see why it won't work on older, less capable browsers. Still a
shame, but understandable. Nice work._

------
jdub
When switching to metric (or perhaps as a separate setting, I'm not sure what
European dietary reporting requirements are like), please change from calories
to kilojoules. :-)

------
ctdonath
Hard (both in difficulty and must-have) requirement: ability to exclude foods
high in Vitamin K.

A lot of us are on blood thinners (anti-coagulants, anti-clotting,
Coumadin/warfarin). Vitamin K is the essence of blood clotting (coagulant,
thickener); high quantity or wide variation can be dangerous (first symptom:
stroke). Creating an interesting diet consistently very low in Vitamin K is
important. Ability to specify "Vitamin K between X and Y micrograms/day" would
be very helpful.

~~~
lrs
To generalize from this very good point - perhaps a future iteration should
include a fully-blinged-out "Advanced" settings menu that lets you add
constraints for a wide variety of dietary restrictions, including
micronutrient requirements, food allergies, and various modes of
vegetarianism.

------
solarmist
This is basically what I've started setting up for myself too. It's like
recreating nutrisystem without the prepackaged foods. I love the idea, it
needs more maturity though. Once the recipe database gets larger and there's
more controls for foods and meals this will be a great tool.

I'd love the ability to save favorite meals (and to build them myself rather
than randomly generate them) which would show up more often in my meal plans.

That said I created an account and will be using it.

~~~
solarmist
I'd also love to be able to specify that I'm going to eat out for a meal and
get suggestions for where to go and what to have.

------
Imagenuity
Off to a good start. I like being able to lock items into a meal, pulling
foods from the left menu, the food picker and the sliders for fats / carbs /
protein. The presets for vegan, paleo, Atkins etc are handy but need some
adjusting. The biggest thing is getting more recipes, especially for the
different diet types. Also avoiding too much of one item, like nuts or bacon.
Probably some more help / tips / hints would be useful for new users.

------
monatron
Great idea. I built something similar to this for myself. My company has a
full cafeteria and Aramark (the co that runs our kitchen) posts the
nutritional info on the web. Quick tool to scrape the nutritional information
into a DB and it kicks me out a solid meal for the day everyday. I'm trying to
incorporate a little logic so that it learns what my favorites are and adjusts
its recommendations accordingly.

------
taejo
In the dialog for calculating one's calorie needs, one can input everything in
metric, or everything in imperial units. I am 6'1" and 65 kg. I don't know my
height in metric, and I don't know my weight in imperial, and I'd guess there
are other people (in the Commonwealth) who are in a similar situation. Best to
convert between the two instead of erasing when one switches between metric
and imperial.

------
bceagle
I have used <http://www.gototaltrainer.com> and it is really good. Not only do
the meal plans they come up with perfectly within whatever constraints you
set, you can also typically find recipes that are actually are enjoyable. It
just seems like they have a pretty big database and a good algorithm to figure
out the meal plan.

~~~
ericd
That site needs some serious work - I spent a couple minutes trying to figure
out how to use it or get it to do _anything_ before figuring out I had to
contact them to try it out. No thanks.

------
mikerice
This is so awesome, just really wish the recipe database was a lot bigger. As
much as I love bacon, not sure I want it for 3 meals a day.

------
thinkdevcode
I absolutely _LOVE_ this app. I'm very into fitness and getting recipes for my
kind of diet can be pretty difficult. You definitely need to add some more
recipes though as I keep getting a "simple fish chowder" for breakfast/meal
3/meal 4/meal 5 which is a little too much of the same thing.

Im looking forward to using this to track my macros.

------
ct0
I like the simplicity. Obviously your site can only get better. One thing that
would interest me in upgrading to a paid account is the opportunity to select
how much I'd would like to spend on the food itself, is there any way to take
in to account local food prices? Keep it up!

~~~
alexsb92
If there is no automated price scrapping based on the local stores in your
area, I think an averaged out "Walmart Price", or "Kmart price" would do just
fine. I'm not too sure what the price difference is in Walmart stores across
the US, but i'd guess it's not that bad.

I guess that if you notice that price databases to be lacking, you could get
users to crowdsource it. Even if only serious power users would fill the
numbers at first to make them more exact, it should get the ball rolling.

------
chamza
This would be the perfect tool for me and my friends if we could only change
the macronutrient percentages (protein, fat, carbs) for the day and for each
meal. Otherwise, great work. One of the coolest web apps I've seen in a while

~~~
papa_bear
You can change it for the day at the bottom of the "meal options" menu. Not
yet for individual meals though

------
jonerickson
Couple of suggestions (I eat Paleo)

    
    
      * Corn is a grain (not a vegetable) 
      * Peanuts are legumes (not a nut) 
      * The Paleo preset needs to NOT include dairy products (eggs are OK), no fruit juice, no peanuts

------
AndyKelley
The app gives the impression that it is only taking into account Fat, Protein,
Carbs, and Calories. What about vitamins and minerals? Can it make sure that
I'm getting enough Vitamin D?

------
bmuon
Your app has a lot of potential! Nice use of Bootstrap too. Oerfect use case
for Scrollspy.

It'd be nice if it allowed you to create a plan for a whole week. It could
even give you a shopping list.

------
atacrawl
A service like this really needs rock-solid UX and this just isn't there yet.
But this has _enormous_ potential, and I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

~~~
ericd
Which parts need improvement?

------
wes-exp
A good start, but needs a way to distinguish between fat types
(unsaturated/saturated/etc.). No way to minimize saturated fat consumption.

------
CorwinJames
It's really cool to see how this site has matured over time. This is a huge
leap forward from the first iteration of Swole.me

~~~
papa_bear
haha thanks james

------
julianz
Pretty cool. I was all ready to come up with some canned whine about no paleo
options but there they are. Very nice.

------
phreeza
Please add a setting to change measurements to metric globally, not just in
the serving size but also the recipes.

------
axx
Salmon & Potato Scramble for breakfast, what am i? The Queen?

But besides that, pretty nice idea! I also like the interface! :)

~~~
nookie
"Brie cheese on bread", "Hummus pocket sandwich" or "Goat cheese herb omelet".
:)

Bit impractical imho. I think it needs a "staple" option (i would choose
legumes for example, others rice or potatoes).

------
yogrish
Very nice and useful App. Please consider options for different metrics as
well like KGs and Metres/CentiMeters.

------
mcteapot
Awesome idea! Wish you could set your current weight and your target weight
you want to go down or up to.

~~~
kbojody
You can, its just slightly hidden. Under the "I want to eat X calories in X
meals" there is a "not sure?" button. Click that and it will help you generate
a target number for your calories.

------
jamesbee
I'd love it if it could suggest your week's menu and then hook into your
online grocery shopping too

------
onats
How was this site built?

------
meric
It looks nice, but orange and yogurt in the same meal?

------
eclipxe
This is well done, nice evolution of swole.me!

------
pablisco
There is no vegetarian option?

~~~
phreeza
There is. Look in the meal options.

------
derleth
From the fortune files:

    
    
        This is the first numerical problem I ever did.  It demonstrates the
        power of computers:
    
        Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods.  Instruct
        the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a
        minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content.  The
        results are that one should eat each day:
    
            1/2 chicken
            1 egg
            1 glass of skim milk
            27 heads of lettuce.
                    -- Rev. Adrian Melott

~~~
sciboy
This was our assignment for an AI class many years ago - take USDA and a GA
with constraints set by users to generate meal plans.

I remember being told to eat a kilo of salt :)

~~~
StavrosK
That sounds like an insult. "Hey, buddy! Go eat a kilo of salt!"

------
baghali
just eat alkaline and you will be healthy

~~~
corwinstephen
I have never understood diets like this. They don't make evolutionary sense.
There's only one diet logically that is ideal in my opinion, and I'd like to
call it the food diet. Eat food. Eat natural, unmodified food. If its
processed and has things that aren't food in it, don't eat it. It's worth
making more frequent trips to the grocery store to buy food that's real than
to eat the non-food additives that make other things stay longer.

Guaranteed, if everyone were to cut all non-food / modified food items from
their diets, the only people that would be unhealthy would be those who have
medical conditions. And we'd probably have way less of those too.

Oh, and none of this should negate the fact that eatthismuch.com is totally
awesome. Keep it up!

~~~
stef25
> natural, unmodified food

ie whole foods, and yes this is pretty much the only dieting advise you need.

~~~
derleth
No. The only dieting advice you need is to keep your calorie content in a
reasonable range (roughly equal to expenditure to maintain weight, less than
expenditure to lose) and make sure you're getting enough nutrients.

It's possible to lose weight on a Twinkie diet. The person who did also
improved his cholesterol levels: His LDL dropped, his HDL went up, and his
triglycerides went down.

[http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/06/health/la-he-
fitness...](http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/06/health/la-he-fitness-
twinkie-diet-20101206)

[http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...](http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html)

~~~
corwinstephen
I think it was Einstein who once said, "knowledge is not about what you've
learned, it's about what you've managed to unlearn.". The old "calories in,
calories out" adage is one of those things you have to unlearn, because as
much as it seems to make sense, modern science has shown us that it's simply
not true.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z5X0i92OZQ&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z5X0i92OZQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

~~~
trontron
most knowledgeable people disagree with him. for an intro look at his
wikipage: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lustig> or i.e.
[http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-
ab...](http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-
fructose-alarmism/)

~~~
corwinstephen
Sure, some people disagree, but you'd be farfetched to find anybody in history
who proposed a new way of thinking who didn't have people arguing against him.

Furthermore, something being "unproven" (which is what his Wiki says about his
propositions) is very different from it being "disproven." Even the most
brilliant scientific breakthroughs of our time were, at the time of their
inception, unproven.

Whether or not you agree, I still highly recommend watching the whole video.
It's rife with good material for discussion.

~~~
trontron
Your posts are not straightforward. Here's the wiki quote: "By contrast, such
a conclusion has been deemed unwarranted by medical experts and not confirmed
by clinical research. For example, in one meta-analysis giving evidence
opposite to Lustig's opinion, fructose consumption actually reduced blood
glucose levels with no effect on body weight."

It's not "some people" but instead the clear majority of nutrition researchers
/ specialists. Your argument about "unproven" vs "disproven" is a straw man.
Having extensive meta studies that show no support for Lustigs thesis is as
close to disprove something as it is possible to do so in nutrition
discussions (even though most nutrition studies have major problems in their
quality and samplesize quantity).

Further, in your original comment you wrote "modern science has shown us that
it's simply not true." and your only support for this was the linking of
Lustigs youtube-video (which, to say it nicely, is at least heavily
contested). I agree with you that there are many open nutrition questions (and
that it is important to keep an open mind for new concepts / ideas), but to
postulate that science has shown that "calories in, calories out" is wrong, is
untrue. I think this is definitely the wrong place to have an indepth
discussion about the topic, but i just couldn't let your original statement
stand by itself without a reply.

