Culin

Feature

The core loop takes macro targets, time, taste, budget, location, and user intent, then returns one next meal instead of a ranked list of options.

How I Built It

I modeled the product around a binary order-or-cook decision. The mobile client collects constraints with typed React Native flows, the API normalizes those inputs, and the scorer weighs macro fit, time-to-eat, cost, preference match, and confidence before the LLM writes the recommendation.

Feature

Culin feels conversational, but the response is assembled from structured nutrition context, user memory, and validated output fields.

How I Built It

The generation path builds a compact context packet with remaining macros, diet rules, recent meals, preferred cuisines, and candidate foods. The model returns a meal card with reasoning, substitutions, macro estimates, and a next action. Validation keeps the response usable by the mobile UI.

Feature

The nutrition layer estimates calories, protein, carbs, and fats from real food data instead of relying on generic chatbot guesses.

How I Built It

I designed ingestion and matching around USDA/FatSecret-style datasets, normalized food names, serving units, and macro fields, then used fuzzy matching to connect user-friendly food descriptions to structured records. This lets the app show macro confidence and explain where estimates came from.

Feature

Culin remembers goals, preferences, allergies, diet rules, and meal feedback so recommendations improve without making users re-enter context.

How I Built It

The app separates local mobile state from account-backed state. Fast preferences can be cached on-device, while durable profile data and meal history live behind authenticated APIs. Cognito/OIDC and JWT verification protect user-specific endpoints.

Feature

After the decision is made, the product turns it into an action: a restaurant-style order path or a grocery/cook path.

How I Built It

The backend keeps the handoff modular. Restaurant/menu matching, grocery list generation, recipe ingredients, and external links can evolve independently while the mobile UI renders the same action card pattern. That keeps Culin from becoming tied to one vendor integration.