Inspiration
Sometimes food is the easiest answer to a feeling we have not yet named. Essgefühl began with a question: how can an app make that moment an invitation to understand ourselves?
The answer became an expedition. Stress, sleep, routines, social situations, and mood form an inner landscape. Bo, a small fox companion, accompanies the journey. Each reflection offers another clue about the relationship between feelings and eating.
What it does
Essgefühl helps people notice feelings around food through short check-ins, personal reflections, and descriptive observations from their own entries.
Today offers a simple starting point: check in, reflect, or take a breathing pause. Patterns brings recorded moments together so users can explore recurring themes. Explore opens the illustrated expedition world, where progress follows reflection and discovery.
A seven-stage guided journey, “A pause in the stress valley,” turns that identity into practical steps. Users move at their own pace and can save reflections along the way. The first stage is free; further stages and a separate reading pack are available through optional one-time purchases.
How we built it
We built Essgefühl with Flutter and Dart, using Riverpod for state management, GoRouter for navigation, and Drift with SQLite for local storage. The interface supports German and English.
Check-ins, journal entries, and guided-journey reflections stay on the device. RevenueCat manages purchase access and restoration through the platform store. Purchase access is separate from expedition progress: exploring the world follows the user's reflections.
The visual identity combines warm parchment, sage tones, illustrated landscapes, gentle motion, and Bo's presence. The expedition metaphor connects the everyday check-in with the wider journey of self-discovery.
Challenges we faced
The central challenge was keeping the expedition meaningful while making everyday use simple. We brought quick actions into Today and preserved the richer world in Explore, giving both a clear role.
Another challenge was designing progress around attention and reflection. Rewards must never depend on restricting food, changing weight, or resisting a craving. We also worked on readable layouts, larger text, and consistent German and English copy so the experience remains approachable.
What we learned
Language, navigation, and incentives all shape how an app makes people feel. A small wording choice can change a reflection from an invitation into a judgment.
We learned to make the next step clear, keep observations descriptive, and let users choose their pace. Essgefühl's purpose is to help people approach their eating habits with curiosity and compassion, one recorded moment at a time.
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