I built a recipe app because I kept finding recipes I couldn't actually eat - looking for honest feedback from people who cook
Built a recipe app to solve my own "I can't eat that as-is" problem, looking for honest feedback.
Upfront: I built a small iOS app called CookBetter. Not trying to spamm I'd rather hear honest reactions from people who actually cook.
The problem I kept hitting: I'd save recipes constantly from TikTok, Reels, food blogs, screenshots from friends. But half of them didn't fit how I eat (trying to hit a protein target, watching sodium, whatever it is that week). So they'd just sit there. Saving was easy; actually using them was the hard part.
What I ended up building:
The main thing is recipe rewriting. You set your goals (high-protein, low-carb, low-sodium, etc.), diet style (vegetarian, keto, paleo…), any restrictions, and the app rewrites any saved recipe to fit while keeping it recognizable as the same dish.
Some of the other features: saving from links/videos/photos, a pantry tracker with expiration alerts, auto-built grocery lists, a Cook Mode with big text and screen-stays-on.
A few details I cared about because other apps get them wrong:
- Nutrition info is free on every recipe
- US-to-metric conversions are density-based --> 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar are not the same in grams
- Custom colored tags you can actually search and filter by
- Export to a clean printable cookbook layout when I want you hold the physical copies in the kitchen
Real question I'd love answered:
When a recipe doesn't fit your diet, what do you actually do?
A) Make it anyway
B) Modify it yourself by feel
C) Skip it
D) Something else
And more broadly, is "recipe doesn't fit my diet" even a real problem for you, or am I solving something only I care about? Brutal honesty welcome.