Inspiration

We've all been there: scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, finding a recipe that looks amazing, saving it, and then never actually making it. Whether it's because we don't have the right ingredients, don't know how it fits our nutritional goals, or simply don't want to spend more money on groceries, there's often a disconnect between discovering food and actually cooking it. As college students, we understand how difficult it can be to balance eating well, staying within a budget, and finding time to cook. Existing platforms address individual parts of this problem, but food discovery, nutrition tracking, and pantry management often require multiple apps. That's what inspired Nourish. We wanted to create a single platform that transforms food inspiration into meals people can actually make.

What it does

Nourish is an AI-powered food discovery and meal management platform that combines the entertainment of TikTok with the functionality of a personal nutritionist and kitchen assistant. Our platform brings together five key features:

Personalized Recipe Discovery: A TikTok-style feed where users can scroll through cooking videos and filter recipes by dietary preferences, cooking time, ingredients, and nutritional goals.
AI-Powered Recipe Generation: AI analyzes cooking videos to identify ingredients, generate step-by-step instructions, and estimate nutritional information.
Smart Pantry Management: Users can track ingredients they already own, identify missing ingredients, and discover recipes based on what's available in their kitchens.
Budget-Conscious Shopping: Users can create grocery lists, estimate ingredient costs, and find affordable recipes that minimize unnecessary grocery purchases.
Nutrition Tracking: Users can monitor calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fats to better understand how their meals align with their nutritional goals.

How we built it

We used Figma to design a mobile-friendly interface and ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to assist with coding, debugging, and refining our features. We integrated the Gemini API to analyze cooking videos and generate recipes, ingredients, and nutritional estimates. Using Python and FastAPI for our backend, we connected recipe discovery, pantry management, grocery budgeting, and nutrition tracking into one seamless platform.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was using AI to accurately extract ingredients, measurements, and instructions from cooking videos that don't always provide complete information. We also faced challenges integrating multiple features into one cohesive interface while working within the limited timeframe of a hackathon.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of bringing together food discovery, AI-generated recipes, pantry management, and nutrition tracking into one platform. Rather than creating another recipe-saving app, we built a solution that helps users turn food inspiration into meals they can actually make.

What we learned

We learned how to integrate AI APIs into a functional application, connect frontend and backend components, and use AI development tools to accelerate our workflow. Most importantly, we learned how to turn an everyday problem into a practical, user-centered product.

What's next for Nourish

We hope to expand Nourish with AI-powered fridge scanning, automatic receipt processing, smarter grocery budgeting, and personalized recipe recommendations. We also want to introduce more social features so users can upload cooking videos, share recipes, and connect with other home cooks. Our long-term goal is to make healthy, affordable cooking accessible to everyone.