A Recipe Transformer for Better Health

Indians, unfortunately, are nutritionally deficient on almost every front - protein intake, micronutrients, minerals. Although many believe “traditional diets” are superior to “modern fads” the fact is our diets are anything but traditional. Most of what we eat are products of post industrial age, fruits/vegetables/grains etc have been selectively grown to maximize taste and yield but not nutrition, soil has been so depleted and growing cycles are so fast that the same vegetable your grandparents once ate likely contains a fraction of the nutrition today.

The Task

• Create an application that allows users to upload a recipe (or select from existing recipes) and find a few healthier variations of the same. Show a clear before and after so people see the benefits of making the changes.
• Healthy variants should be across different dimensions. For example, you could have a high protein variant, a fibre-rich variant, an iron-boosting variant. Start by looking into deficiencies in the Indian population and design your boosts to mitigate these.
• You can use LLMs to directly generate responses or to create a database for a rules based system that can make intelligent substitutions.
• Think about ingredients that are reasonably and widely available in India - LLMs by default will not adjust for this, so you have to account for this consciously. Bonus points for considering seasonality, local availability by region etc.
• If you want to dive deep and focus on a single local cuisine but do a very thorough job, we not only allow but encourage it! It is likely this approach will help you discover ideas that are uniquely applicable to a single cuisine - and since many others like you will be doing quests we can combine your efforts to make something truly comprehensive.

Bonus Points

• Think carefully about messaging, which is as important as building a great product. In India there is a lot of resistance to changing habits around food, and the wrong messaging can people’s cherished heritage feel attacked.
• Show the history of food in India and how it has always evolved - the beloved trio (potatoes, tomatoes, chillies) aren’t even from India but from South America for example! Paneer is from the Middle East, soya chunks from china… showing people how cuisine has always evolved might make them more open to changes in the present
• Beautiful effect design is always more important than developers realize. Look at dribble, popular apps and even ChatGPT for design input.

Why it Matters:

Good nutrition is a key pillar of public health, and it’s not something that can be regulated or imposed, but a choice people must make for themselves. Eating well can stave off lifestyle diseases like diabetes, improve longevity and health span and generally have people lead more energetic happy lives. If you are able to truly do this effectively, you stand have a positive effect on the health outcomes of millions of Indians.

What in it for you:

Doing this exercise will likely change the way you interact with food and nutrition and help you understand public health, behavior and culture is a broad way. You’ll also learn to design functional consumer facing apps, and get to play with a cool and high-impact application of AI. If your work is excellent we’ll help distribute widely. Further, we’ll ensure you get a final interview at top consumer startups, health-focused orgs or any other type of company you might find interesting.