Inspiration
Cautious Cuisine was inspired by our experiences with friends and family who, due to allergies, often had to settle for undesirable meals at restaurants. Watching them miss out on the joy of dining out felt unfair to us. That's why our team set out to create a solution that makes it easy for people to discover restaurants offering allergy-friendly dishes, allowing everyone to enjoy a safe and satisfying dining experience.
What it does
Our project is a website that helps users find meals from various restaurants based on their allergies. Currently, our database includes three restaurants: Symposium Cafe, Next Door, and Smash Kitchen and Bar. Users can search for meals based on four specific criteria: dairy-free, peanut-free, gluten-free, and vegetarian. When they search, they'll see all the available dishes from these restaurants, complete with key ingredients and a picture of what the meal looks like. This way, users can make informed decisions on the most appetizing meal options without being restricted to a single restaurant.
How we built it
The website was built primarily using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. All HTML files were created separately, with the main being "allergy.html," which was, in a way, the host of the website as all individual HTML codes were later referenced back to it by the help of Javascript. There are 24 HTML and CSS files and one Javascript file. The HTML files were created by checking for restaurants with said filters, including combinations, meaning one or more filers. When the button "Go" is clicked, the restaurants show, respectively. All CSS files have the same background, incorporating a formality to the page. The Javascript file was designed by writing a program that filters all the names of the HTML files. If one or more button(s) are clicked, the program references them by their names and takes you to the website that offers your preferences. The incorporation of all these programming languages brought about the Cautious Cuisine website.
Challenges we ran into
In the early stages of developing Cautious Cuisine, our goal was to create a streamlined process for uploading restaurant menus to our website, allowing for a faster expansion of our restaurant database. We envisioned using a Large Language Model (LLM) to automatically sort and categorize menu items based on allergies, making the process both efficient and scalable.
However, we encountered several challenges along the way. When using free LLMs, we struggled with converting PDF menus into text due to the unique formatting of each restaurant's menu. This inconsistency led to errors in data extraction and classification, hindering our ability to rely on the LLM for accurate sorting.
While paid LLMs, like those offered by OpenAI, have the capability to process PDFs more effectively, none of our team members had already invested in these tools. Given the time and resource constraints, we made the decision to shift our focus towards the website's development. By prioritizing the creation of a user-friendly platform, we ensured that our core mission—to help people with allergies find safe and delicious meals—remained at the forefront of our efforts.
In the creation of the website, a major challenge faced was knowing how to code the Javascript section, as it was quite a toll both mentally and time-wise. It took a while to do, but we achieved it by making sure every name was perfectly mapped and linked for all 48 tabs in total and additional while counting images. It was quite hectic, and a lot to get done, but we were able to do it. It also considered the CSS file, making sure that the layout was up to par with what we had in mind for it. It took a while to finally have a grasp on the major points to focus on and how to go about it, but we were able to put heads together and get it done.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud that we were able to finish the project. We had thoughts of giving up because we thought what we were going for was unimaginable, especially with such a time constraint, but we strived to get it done, and we did. No matter the placement or awards, we are delighted (and tired) from all the hard work we completed together!
What we learned
We learned to be relentless and focused on achieving our goal no matter what problems we faced, and we prevailed.
What's next for Cautious Cuisine
Our next steps for Cautious Cuisine include the following:
Expansion
Expanding our database is a major priority as we move forward with Cautious Cuisine. Whether we choose to invest in a paid LLM or develop a workaround, finding a scalable and manageable way to upload and categorize restaurant menus is crucial. As we add more restaurants, we can begin to include more uncommon allergies, broadening our platform's appeal and making it even more useful to those with specific dietary needs.
Location and Travel Distance
As we expand to include most restaurants within a city, we plan to introduce location-based search features. Users will be able to input their location and the distance they're willing to travel, allowing the website to filter the results accordingly. This improvement will enable us to create tailored web pages for different regions across the Greater Toronto Area and potentially extend our reach to other parts of Ontario. This will make it easier for users to find allergy-friendly meals close to home or while travelling.
Nutrition Facts
If Cautious Cuisine gains significant popularity, we aim to collaborate directly with restaurants to provide detailed nutrition facts for each meal, especially if this information isn't already included on their menus. Displaying nutrition information will not only help users make informed choices based on their allergies but also allow them to consider their overall health when selecting meals. This added layer of transparency can allow users to make healthier dining decisions.
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