Cooking meals just got easier with a web-based app that recommends dishes based on a user’s budget or the ingredients they already have on hand.
Filipino developer Patrick Gabriel Pascual created AnoUlam (www.anoulam.app), a web-based app that suggests recipes based on a user’s budget or the ingredients available in their pantry.
He said all suggested meals come with macronutrient information, a list of ingredients and recipe instructions.
The platform says it curates “quick meals” that help users avoid overthinking what to cooking, resulting in “less decision fatigue.”
Using artificial intelligence (AI), the app automatically calculates ingredient costs from local supermarkets to keep its suggestions within the user’s budget.
It also provides estimated calorie and macronutrient counts for each meal to help users make healthier choices.
Pascual said the app can also generate a grocery list for users.
Moreover, it offers “bonus features” such as “Price Watch” and the “Meal Planner.”
“Check palengke items so you would know kung ano ang bagsak presyo every week! (data is from the Department of Agriculture),” Pascual said, referring to the “Price Watch” feature.
Meanwhile, the “Meal Planner” can generate a five-day meal plan. Pascual it is intended “more for gym-goers with strict diet.”
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In an interview with radar, Pascual said the platform’s main goal is “to help people reduce the mental effort of deciding what to eat or cook.”
He shared that he often found himself switching between recipe websites and food delivery apps, only to spend half an hour deciding what to eat.
“I wasn’t just asking myself, ‘Ano ulam?’ I was also wondering, Kasya ba sa budget?,’ Ano puwede lutuin?,’ and ‘Pasok ba ‘to sa macro goals?” he explained.
“The problem wasn’t that I had no options. It was that I had too many,” Pascual said.
Those realizations prompted him to develop the app on April 11 and launch its public version on May 17.
“I also wanted to introduce macro awareness by providing estimated nutritional information to help users make more informed meal decisions,” the developer said.
Pascual said the platform will continue to evolve based on user feedback, with future improvements focused on its recommendation engine, recipe collection and community experience.
