Food Save recipe-generator for teenagers
The Food Save Generator prevents food waste in private households. Food that is in the refrigerator can be entered into the generator. Artificial intelligence (AI) is used to create balanced and seasonal menus. With different filters, factors such as the amount of time or nutritional form can be selected.
Who are the people behind the project and what is your background?
The team is part of the Schtifti Foundation.
Before I started at Schtifti, I worked as a drogist and studied health promotion and prevention. As sustainability is very close to my heart, I would like to encourage others to live a sustainable lifestyle. I believe that in addition to fundamental changes, we also need tools to support sustainable living. Our AI project starts exactly there, to reach young people playfully and motivate them to save food and eat a balanced diet.
How did your idea come into being?
The Schtifti Foundation is committed to a balanced diet, the environment and the mental and psychological health of young people. After all, health and the environment influence each other and an intact nature strengthens health. The topic of nutrition falls into both areas, which is why we thought about how we could make a contribution here with our health promotion and education program GORILLA, which offers added value to young people.
Young people often don't go shopping by themselves their parents do. So, if we want young people to cook for themselves, we need to give them the lowest possible barrier to entry: they only need to go to their parents' fridge and pick out the ingredients they want to use. In addition, food waste accounts for about 25 percent of the environmental impact of our food system in Switzerland. For these two reasons, we want to provide young people with recipes that can be cooked using the food that is currently available in their fridge.
What is your idea to impactfully design a climate positive FOODprint for Switzerland?
For the reasons mentioned above, we are engaged in the development of a recipe-generator by means of an artificial intelligence that generates recipes from the contents of refrigerators and pantries that would otherwise go to waste. Various parameters can be selected such as the amount of time required, snack or main course, or nutrition types. The generator is programmed to generate only recipes for a balanced diet. As well as helping to reduce food waste, the generator also helps young people to eat a balanced diet. As a first step, the generator will be used on the website of the health promotion and education program GORILLA (www.gorilla.ch). But we want to scale it up to reach as many people as possible, with as many partners as possible, saving as much food as possible from going to waste.
How do you define the positive impact of your solution on the problem described above?
The Food Save recipe generator developed by the Schtifti Foundation has a positive impact on the climate by making it easier for young people to access the food they already have, thus reducing food waste. Using artificial intelligence, it creates balanced menus from ingredients that are already in young people's homes and might otherwise end up in the waste bin. This makes efficient use of available resources and encourages more sustainable cooking habits. By empowering young people to make climate-friendly choices, the Food Save recipe generator contributes to a more sustainable food system and helps reduce the climate impact of food production. The greater the scale of the project, the greater the climate impact.
