[HN Gopher] Show HN: Famnom - Nutrition tracker and meal planner...
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Show HN: Famnom - Nutrition tracker and meal planner for families
Author : umangsh
Score : 40 points
Date : 2022-07-23 16:40 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.famnom.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.famnom.com)
| dgeiser13 wrote:
| The name of this product is too close to Famine.
| markmiro wrote:
| I've thought about making something like this in the past.
|
| I've used the "Nutrients" iOS app for tracking nutrition, but not
| in the way it's meant to be used. Maybe my usage patterns could
| help you writing your app.
|
| I tend to use the app to get a pulse on the nutrient density of
| the foods I consume (or feed my daughter). I would make simple
| meals, and plug them in, and then try to get all the nutrient
| bars filled up. It was harder than I expected. It was a puzzle to
| figure out because foods have different levels of each nutrient.
| I want to avoid adding onto nutrients I'm already consuming
| enough of.
|
| I tried to use the Nutrients app to search for foods dense in
| some nutrient I was lacking, but I often found Google searches to
| be better for this. The way the app ranked foods wasn't useful to
| me. Was it measuring nutrients by weight? What if I wanted to
| rank by price, or by region? I don't care that raw Moose Liver
| has lots of Riboflavin.
|
| I preferred using the app to determine my grocery list because I
| don't like recipes. I want to know how to cook things
| individually (pasta, rice, eggs, asparagus, etc) with salt +
| (butter or oil), and then figure out how to assemble meals on my
| own. With recipes, I would often have leftovers I didn't know
| what to do with. I could look up more recipes, but I couldn't see
| how this would make me a better cook since I didn't know what I
| was doing or why. I was inspired by Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid
| Heat approach to cooking. This way I could get nutrition and
| flavor simultaneously.
|
| This all got really complicated, and I eventually figured I
| wouldn't reach the end of it. For example, rice grown in
| different regions has different levels of arsenic. I'm not
| concerned about arsenic specifically, but the finding got me more
| curiously interested in toxins, and soil differences around the
| world. I got into nutrition thinking I could be convinced of one
| specific diet over another, but I soon found myself looking into
| differences between soil in different regions.
|
| After I used the app enough, I got a sense of some of my blind
| spots, and used that to adjust my diet intuitively.
|
| Some changes that more-or-less stuck: - More sun for Vitamin D -
| More Avocados - Omega-3 from fish oil - Nutritional Yeast for B
| Vitamins - More greens (especially for magnesium) - Spinach in
| smoothies - Less sugars, carbs, and bread - Parmesan cheese for
| calcium - More beans
|
| I have decent intuition around green means chlorophyll molecule
| means there's a magnesium atom in there, and some others. The
| minerals are easy enough for me to get enough of. I can usually
| get enough Vitamin C. I don't have good intuition around Vitamin
| K, E, Niacin, Riboflavin, Folate. Beans have lots of Folate. This
| makes sense, but lots of other foods I regularly eat have it too.
|
| I'm inspired to get back into this and start tracking again.
|
| --
|
| BACKGROUND:
|
| After my daughter was born, I was suddenly extremely interested
| in nutrition. I worried what might happen if my daughter started
| missing important nutrients. However, it was hard to get
| trustworthy information on nutrition. Important debates weren't
| settled. I wasn't confident that I could trust things like the
| food pyramid. Like you, I felt more confident about using micro
| and macro nutrients as a way to decide what to eat, but also to
| compose meals that were nutritionally complete. This is something
| I didn't see much focus on. People would tout some specific food
| as "healthy" without putting it in context.
|
| From there, I still wanted to cover my bases for unknown
| unknowns. If I added more traditional foods, I'd be able to cover
| for it. As an outsider, I don't know how likely it is that we've
| discovered all the nutrients we need. For example, I recently saw
| a research paper asking if Lithium is a micronutrient. Maybe
| there were foods that had nutrients that weren't discovered, or
| maybe different people need different levels of the same
| nutrients. Maybe microplastics are a bigger problem than we
| imagine. It's hard to account for everything. I wanted a baseline
| I could start from. I looked into traditional slavic foods. I
| found that potatoes were more recents, for example, so I wouldn't
| use them to cover for unknown unknowns. However, cabbage and
| buckwheat are both nutritionally rich and slavic staples. Maybe I
| could use this finding to trust dishes that feature these
| ingredients.
| novok wrote:
| I would suggest looking into meat based dishes, including organ
| meats, eggs, bone/meat broths and such. You'll find it much
| easier to 'fill' all the nutrition bars if you use that.
|
| I would also suggest avoiding leafy vegetables in general,
| since there are a lot of defensive chemicals in them that are
| not very good for you, especially concentrated blended versions
| of them. You tend to want to eat plants in states that they
| want to be eaten in, such as fruit flesh. Plants don't want
| their leaves and seeds to be eaten, thus the large amount of
| protective chemicals in them to discourage that from happening.
| The ideal situation for plants is you eat a fruit when it's
| ripe, swallow the seed whole, and pass the seed in your stool
| somewhere else in a stool fertilizer bed on the ground
| somewhere. This means low sugar fruits that we call vegetables
| like cucumbers and tomatoes are also ok.
|
| Also fish and liquid oils tend to go rancid fairly fast. Solid
| oils tend to stay fresh longer. If you want more fish in your
| diet, eating actual fresh wild fish vs a fish oil significantly
| healthier.
| ladeh wrote:
| Very detailed,could also help you cut down unhealthy meal plans.
| Weldone
| [deleted]
| umangsh wrote:
| Thanks!
| waterbase wrote:
| How are you pulling nutrients info and what's guarantee for
| accuracy of those nutrients numbers mentioned?
| umangsh wrote:
| Nutrition information is source from USDA FDC database:
| https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/, which provides fairly comprehensive
| coverage for fresh foods and vegetables.
|
| Besides produce/meat, the database also provides nutrition info
| for 300,000+ branded packaged foods (search by name or
| barcode).
|
| In addition, you can create new foods and add them to your
| kitchen.
| monkeydust wrote:
| Can I ask where you got the nutritional data from, how can I
| trust it?
| umangsh wrote:
| Data is sourced from USDA, and it's updated every six months.
| Whole hog ingestion happens here:
| https://github.com/umangsh/famnom/blob/main/nutrition_tracke...
| dlan1000 wrote:
| Hmm. Like the idea but the name... I get it, but if you say it
| fast, it sounds like famine.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Or something the Donner Party would do.
| [deleted]
| andai wrote:
| This was my first thought as well, from the name I thought it's
| for optimizing your nutritional intake in a food shortage.
| Rezwoodly wrote:
| As others are asking, where did you get all the nutrional data
| from? How can we know its accurate. To be honest, the pasta and
| sauce I eat here is different nutritional content than in other
| countries. Its all just an approximation at best. At worst,
| wildly inaccurate
| camgunz wrote:
| Looks like it's from the USDA's FoodData data.
| pkaye wrote:
| Looks like there is the USDA food database in there.
|
| https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/
| umangsh wrote:
| Hi everyone, I'm the author of Famnom. I built it after trying
| various nutrition tracking apps but didn't find anything that fit
| my needs.
|
| What is it?
|
| Famnom is an easy-to-use macro and micro-nutrient tracker, and
| meal planner. Choose from a database of foods or add your own,
| create recipes and log meals. Set custom nutrition goals or use
| FDA RDIs for macros - calories, fats, proteins, carbs and micro-
| nutrients - Magnesium, Calcium, Zinc, Iron, etc. Use MealPlanner
| to generate daily meal plans based on nutrition goals, available
| items and taste preferences. Sample user journeys:
|
| Signup/Login:
| https://github.com/umangsh/famnom/blob/master/journeys/signu...
|
| Search/Setup Kitchen:
| https://github.com/umangsh/famnom/blob/master/journeys/searc...
|
| Nutrition Goals:
| https://github.com/umangsh/famnom/blob/master/journeys/nutri...
|
| Mealplanner:
| https://github.com/umangsh/famnom/blob/master/journeys/mealp...
|
| Why?
|
| My main goal was to eliminate nutritional supplements in my diet,
| and use fresh foods and recipes as much as possible. Famnom can
| help:
|
| 1. Track macro nutrients and micro nutrients, such as Vitamin D,
| Fiber, Magnesium, etc consumed per day. Connect with Apple Health
| for trends over longer periods of time.
|
| 2. Generate meal plans based on available foods and recipes in
| Kitchen, nutrition preferences and taste preferences.
|
| 3. Share kitchens with other family members.
|
| Famnom has worked for me personally. I was able to eliminate
| almost all supplements from my diet. I hope it can help others
| with their health goals.
|
| Tech Stack:
|
| Application backend code built using Django + Postgres. Deployed
| on Heroku. iOS and Android apps built with Flutter.
|
| Web: https://www.famnom.com
|
| Code: https://github.com/umangsh/famnom
|
| iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/famnom/id1583273562
|
| Android:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.famnom.fam...
|
| Code: https://github.com/umangsh/famnom_flutter
| cdubzzz wrote:
| I built kcal[0] after a similar search. The focus is primarily
| on macros and ultimately I kind of lost steam on developing
| further (though we still use it to great success). A part of
| why lost interest is that I didn't like PHP + Laravel as much
| as Python + Django.
|
| Anyway I see you have the Famnom code on GH but apparently not
| with an OSS license. Are you planning to seek contributions
| with a friendly license in the future? If so I'd be interested.
|
| [0] https://github.com/kcal-app/kcal
| willhoyle wrote:
| I also have a similar project partially done but lost steam
| (eatplants.app). I always think I should just finish it to
| make it functional.
|
| My thinking is that logging food is annoying (weighing and
| tracking food you ate). I want to make a more fluid way of
| just selecting recipes or food and encourage a more
| scalable/intuitive way of eating.
|
| Looks like a cool project you've built there.
| umangsh wrote:
| Absolutely open to contributions :). Didn't pay attention to
| licensing yet, will look at options.
| novok wrote:
| I would also put an example account or dashboard so people can
| play with it to understand what it does before going through
| sign up work.
|
| Another thing is the USDA nutrition info for raw ingredients
| might be actually a bit out of date, with a lot of the
| measurements taken long time ago. The actual micronutrient
| content of raw food can vary greatly depending on what kind of
| soil it was planted in, how unripe it was before harvesting and
| many other factors, which isn't shown in this kind of stuff
| unfortunately. And the quality of soil 30 or 40 years ago is
| probably radically different than it is now.
| umangsh wrote:
| Your point about nutritional variability with location and
| time is valid. USDA periodically refreshes nutritional
| information for a variety of foods
| (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/log.html) and provides location
| data for collected food samples. For tracking purposes,
| averages are a workable approximation imo.
| cryptophreak wrote:
| You should copy and paste this "Why?" explanation onto the
| front page of the site to instantly multiply the number of
| signups.
| edem wrote:
| I haven't read any of this yet, but this name is superb. I'd buy
| this if I had to choose blindly from 10 random tools including
| this one.
| TylerE wrote:
| Uncomfortably close to famine for my taste.
| dcj4 wrote:
| Too bad FDA recommendations are complete made up fantasy.
| umangsh wrote:
| Interesting, why do you think so?
|
| There are definitely variations between different authorities
| (NHS, FDA, etc). FDA RDIs provide a sane default, and users can
| update nutrition preferences based on their health goals.
| novok wrote:
| RDIs are based on an 'average american' diet. What you
| actually need nutritionally can change significantly based on
| your diet specifics.
|
| For example if you have a diet high in oxalates, which are
| present in many leafy green vegetables, then your nutritional
| requirements for things like calcium and magnesium are
| increased, because the oxalates bind to the calcium and
| magnesium and cause you to not absorb it. Thus to compensate
| for that effect, you need to eat more of that nutrient. If
| you have a diet free of oxalates, then the amount you need is
| less than the RDI, etc.
|
| Also a lot of nutrition labels do not modify themselves on
| the bioavailability of their specific nutrients. Plant
| protein is less bioavailable and has a less balanced amino
| acid profile than meat protein, so you need to eat more plant
| protein typically to get the same total equivalent amount to
| be absorbed by your body. Magnesium oxide is cheaper than
| magnesium citrate and is not absorbed enough, so you need
| more magnesium oxide in weight to have the amount absorbed by
| your body be the same as a lesser amount of magnesium
| citrate. But on nutrition labels, they're just going to put
| milligrams of magnesium, no matter what kind there is.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It would be nice to have more info about what it does before
| signing up.
| [deleted]
| umangsh wrote:
| Skipped an info page for famnom, in favor of the user journey
| gifs + Why? sections on this post. Were they helpful?
|
| I agree an info or onboarding section on famnom itself would be
| nice to have, thanks for the feedback.
| moritonal wrote:
| Absolutely agree. No way I can sell this to my friends without
| an info page.
| oblak wrote:
| It's the weekend so you'll have to forgive me for asking this:
| what's the purpose of tracking and planning your nutrition?
| Illness, sports, obesity? Why would a person decide they want to
| track (not analyze, just track) every little piece of food or
| liquid they consume.
|
| Help me expand my perspective.
| umangsh wrote:
| Illness, sports, obesity are all valid reasons. I feel healthy
| eating can be trained like a muscle - tracking for a few
| weeks/months helps understand food choices better.
|
| Too much sodium / low potassium are common in most diets. Low
| magnesium (sleep issues), low zinc, low fiber etc are a few
| others - a common remedy being nutrition supplements. Better
| tracking allowed me to eliminate additional supplements from my
| diet (except Vit D, which is hard to find in natural sources).
|
| Famnom suggests FDA RDI defaults, but users are free to choose
| what they would like to track.
| idlehand wrote:
| I second this. I went through a phase of extremely clean
| eating and it helped me lose the weight I put on in the first
| half of the pandemic. Now I just have an intuition as to what
| to eat and in which quantities, and it has helped me keep the
| weight off for the past year.
| feet wrote:
| Most Americans have some sort of deficiencies or surplus in
| their diet such as too much sodium and too little potassium.
| Tracking intake can help smooth out deficiencies and surpluses
| for better health, longevity, and childhood development
| hungrigekatze wrote:
| This seems like Cronometer? I've been using Cronometer for a
| decade plus. It was built for folks who were following the CRON
| way of eating: Caloric Restriction Optimum Nutrition. So
| undereating by 20 - 30% of your recommended caloric needs for
| your height, weight, fat-to-muscle ratio, and activity level was
| the aim, but to do so while eating nutrient-rich foods, getting
| most or all of your nutrients from non-supplement form, etc.
| https://cronometer.com/
|
| I continue to use Cronometer as I have a few genetic mutations
| that lead to my body burning through certain vitamins and other
| substances more quickly than folks without the mutations. There's
| a very handy feature called "The Oracle" which will suggest to
| you a food or a recipe (you can then view the recipe's
| ingredients so you're not just told "Omelette with dark leafy
| greens" and left to wonder what the hell that contains). The
| Oracle's recommendation is made based on how many calories and
| various macros that you 'have left' for the day.
|
| Cronometer only has branded US and Canadian foods (and a few EU
| foods) along with 'regular' foods like "egg, boiled" or "avocado,
| Hass" at the moment, but I'm hoping that they expand to have more
| branded EU and Asian foods in their database!
| daedalus_j wrote:
| Cronometer is pretty great. However...
|
| It's multi-user support is... entirely non-existent. And they
| seem rather uninterested in feedback. I'd happily pay them for
| a feature where I could easily make dinner, and split it
| between multiple users. But no, I have to save a "recipe"
| (which stays in the DB forever) and then add a portion of that
| recipe from the other user's account.
|
| So a family-based offering is definitely an interesting idea!
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(page generated 2022-07-23 23:00 UTC)