This Shiny App allows the user to track and monitor their nutritional intake. The user will be able to search food items and/or enter their own items under the Ingredients tab. Using this library of ingredients, the user can then create recipes under the Recipe tab. The Log tab then allows the user to enter their recipes/ingredients that they consume throughout the day. This tab also provides data visualizations to summarize their nutritional intake.
The app can be found here: https://nutrition-te925.ondigitalocean.app/. The current state of the app is loaded with sample data in order to showcase the project. In the near future, the app will be able to accommodate different users.
This project is created under the golem framework by Colin Fay. If you are interested in further reading on how this app was organized, please check out the following resources by Hadley Wickham and Colin Fay:
- Mastering Shiny - Hadley Wickham
- Engineering Production-Grade Shiny Apps - Colin Fay
The Shiny App details are discussed further in the below sections.
There are two sources of data that the user can add to their library:
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) hosts the FDC API to allow users to query their database of nutrient data. This Shiny App allows the user to query this database that requires an API key, which can easily be obtained through the signup form. This allows the user to make up to 3,600 requests per hour.
If a particular food item cannot be found from the FDC lookup, the user can upload their own nutrition data using the form provided in this tab.
As users will typically consume a combination of ingredients at a time, recipes are made available. Existing ingredients in the library will be populated on this page to be added to create recipes.
Note: When logging recipes in the Log tab for consumption, the total weight of the recipe (final product after cooking) will need to be entered along with the amount consumed to get an accurate measure of nutrition info consumed.
Once users have a base of ingredients and recipes added to their library, this section is used to make the consumption entries. Both ingredients and recipes can be selected along with the date and quantities. The app then uses this data to create data visualizations.