When I was in college more than a decade ago, I transitioned from vegetarian to vegan - which only lasted 2 months. Constantly hangry and tired, I also came down with a cold that kept going for almost two weeks. Idealistic and ignorant, I thought it would have been fine with only pasta, tomato sauce and salads everyday.
It wasn't until later that I learned why that was a hard time: my diet didn't fulfill minimum daily protein recommendations and it was also missing a couple essential amino acids (methionine and histidine, in particular). Inadequate protein makes you hungry, tired and gives you mood swings [1]. Essential amino acids are essential - they are necessary for the body's immune system to function correctly [2] [3].
Nowadays, it's much easier to find fulfilling and nutritious recipes and many types of ingredients are more accessible. However, given dietary or financial restrictions, it's still not straightforward to satisfy a complete daily dose of macro and micro nutrients. To top it off, there are hundreds of recipes online for the same dish, really none of which caters to your specific nutritional needs.
Even for those really great bookmarked recipes, tweaks are made out of necessity or preference. Who has time to run to the store for more apple cider vinegar? That gallon of white vinegar will do just fine. 2 cloves of garlic? How about 4...
Recipes, which dictates nutrition, are also very structured and rigid. That's great for search engines to treat it as a static block of text, but not so great for substitutions, variations and optional ingredients.
I dont want to scroll through 5 pages of 'low-fat chocolate chip cookies' recipes.
Just personalize a recipe so it's low fat, high protein and extra vitamin D because I live in Seattle and can really use it.
Can meals and nutrition be more flexible, smarter and easier?
That's the vision of Souper Sage. Recipes that allow smart substitutions, optional ingredients and flexible amounts (mmm.. more garlic). Let it dynamically update nutritional values for your tweaks and for your dietary restrictions. For example, start with a base ramen, taco or sandwich recipe, build it to your nutritional needs by selecting ingredients you have on hand. Get food and recipe recommendations for nutrients you may be high or low for.
Because some of the best meals don't always follow the rules.