PrepPlate

PrepPlate - Personalized meal-prep plans and grocery lists for students

Inspiration

As current university students and recent graduates, we've all experienced the busy student life which has made it difficult for us to go grocery shopping and plan for / prepare proper meals during the academic year. While ordering takeout and living off of less nutritious foods for periods of time sufficed when assignments and exams took up most of our time, there came a point when we felt we lacked energy or brainpower to do well in class after periods of poor eating habits. However, we realized that managing our time and eating better can be achieved through better meal planning and grocery shopping, which is why we made PrepPlate.

What it does

PrepPlate helps students plan their meals for the week by generating personalized weekly meal plans from dietary and personal preferences while creating grocery lists from recipes. Users can select their preferred level of difficulty for recipes, choose their dietary preferences such as if they are gluten-free, and select their grocery budget for the week in order to generate a meal plan for the entire week. For each day of the week, users get recipe ideas for Breakfast, lunch and dinner. They can also look at items in your grocery list which have been generated from the ingredients in their meal plan recipes.

How we built it

We built our web-based app using React, Node.js, MongoDB, MERN stack, spoonacular API and Figma for prototyping and CSS styling. We collaborated as a team of 1 designer, 2 backend and 1 frontend developer, moving from a Figma prototype to connecting backend with frontend code.

Challenges we ran into

We had challenges with communicating backend to front end and formatting what parameters to use for data filtering, but were able to resolve / partially resolve these issues with some determination and support from mentors!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud that we were able to get our app working within 24 hours - celebrating small wins! ⭐️

What we learned

We learned that while there's many features we could add to our app, sometimes it's better to keep it simple and make sure that our ideas or what we design in Figma can be implemented via code in order to successfully complete an MVP within the short timeframe we're given. As well, we learned that we should do more research / have a better understanding of the API we want to use before deciding to implement it so the coding process could go more smoothly.

Research behind our project

"On average, college students eat at fast-food restaurants 1 to 3 times per week." - (NYU) "NHANES data illustrate that a majority of young adults (aged 20–29 years) consume <1 serving/day of fruit (males 63%, females 59%) and vegetables, including potatoes (males 19%, females 20%)." - (NYU) "By planning meals ahead of time, you can cut down on the amount of time you spend in the kitchen, as well as curb the temptation to order takeout. Meal prepping is perfect for days when you have back-to-back meetings or zoom lectures and can’t be bothered to cook full meals." "...meal prepping may help you achieve some goals you may have set for yourself whether it be eating more routinely, reducing the amount of money you spend on takeout…" (McMaster University) "Planning out your meals can reduce unnecessary trips to the grocery store and reduce the amount of time spent at the store and in public." (Queen's University)