Project Background:
This project came to fruition because the three of us are students who eat at dining halls daily. We already track our macros separately, so we came up with the idea for this Meal Builder to streamline the process.
What We Built:
Our project uses a Python program to scrape all of the data off of the UC Berkeley nutritional page and converts it into structured, computer-readable data. We then pass that data through a custom-built algorithm, which — combined with the user's input on our website — outputs specific meal options based on the user's nutritional goals.
The final product is a clean, responsive website that:
Takes in your desired macros (protein, carbs, fats, and calories)
Processes that data through a backend Flask API and algorithm
Returns a daily meal plan that meets your goals using real dining hall data
Challenges We Faced:
The biggest challenge was creating an algorithm that could intelligently generate full meal combinations from large nutrition datasets. Gathering the data from the dining website through scraping was also a complex task.
Originally, we planned to use UC Santa Cruz's dining menu, but we weren't able to scrape their site without asking for permission beforehand. As a result, we pivoted to using UC Berkeley, which allowed us to access and extract the nutritional data we needed.
Despite these setbacks, we were proud of everything we achieved in a short amount of time. A functional backend, a sleek frontend, and a smart food-sorting algorithm — none of which we could’ve built just a year ago — all came together through collaboration and quick learning.
What We Learned:
We learned so much throughout this project. One of the biggest challenges was bridging the gap between Python (for the backend) and HTML/CSS/JavaScript (for the frontend). Since all three of us are relatively new to full-stack development, a lot of the components were built on the fly — and that made it an incredibly rewarding learning experience.
What’s Next:
While we’re proud of the current version, we already have ideas for where to take it next. The ideas that we wanted to include but didn't have time for in this project are to Extend the Meal Builder to support not just college dining halls, but also fast food chains, meal kit services, and even custom home ingredients. We also want to make it more dynamic, adding chatbots inside of our website to give more access to nutritional questions when you need them.User Saving: Enable users to track their meal history, set daily/weekly goals, and save favorite meal combinations.
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