Supermarket provides AI-driven meal planner and is disappointed by the internet using it to output weird recipes

A supermarket chain in New Zealand offered an AI-based recipe generator, and of course people started throwing in random household items to see what it would make. For The Guardian, Tess McClure reports:

The app, created by supermarket chain Pak ‘n’ Save, was advertised as a way for customers to creatively use up leftovers during the cost of living crisis. It asks users to enter in various ingredients in their homes, and auto-generates a meal plan or recipe, along with cheery commentary. It initially drew attention on social media for some unappealing recipes, including an “oreo vegetable stir-fry”.

When customers began experimenting with entering a wider range of household shopping list items into the app, however, it began to make even less appealing recommendations. One recipe it dubbed “aromatic water mix” would create chlorine gas. The bot recommends the recipe as “the perfect nonalcoholic beverage to quench your thirst and refresh your senses”.

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Save recipes to your email

Yums, by Matthew Phillips, is a quick and simple way to save recipes via email:

Yums is a recipe storage system built on top of email. Content on the web disappears with time, but email you have control over forever.

To use Yums, find a recipe you like and send an email to save@yums.email. In the body paste the link to the recipe you want to save. You can paste as many links as you like, separated by new lines.

Super easy and the email is just the recipe without the backstory. I understand why people include all the wordage and pictures before the actual recipe, but it’s gotten out of hand.

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Food recipe cards to preserve family’s culture

In an effort to preserve part of her family’s culture, Jane Zhang designed recipe cards illustrating foods from her mother and grandmother. They provide ingredients and steps, but they also provide illustrations and diagrams that represent cuisine style, cooking method, texture, and taste.

My grandma spoke little English and I speak little Cantonese, so we often communicated through the language of food. So this project really speaks to me. I wish I had this for my own family.

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Food recipe cards to preserve family’s culture

In an effort to preserve part of her family’s culture, Jane Zhang designed recipe cards illustrating foods from her mother and grandmother. They provide ingredients and steps, but they also provide illustrations and diagrams that represent cuisine style, cooking method, texture, and taste.

My grandma spoke little English and I speak little Cantonese, so we often communicated through the language of food. So this project really speaks to me. I wish I had this for my own family.

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