Since its launch, I’ve mainly used ChatGPT to help me summarize academic articles and brainstorm ideas. Yesterday, I decided to let the LLM help me decide what to eat that night (OpenAI, 2024).
I rearranged the ingredients in my fridge so the main items were visible, moving condiments toward the back. I took a picture and uploaded it to ChatGPT with the prompt:
“What can I make for dinner tonight with these ingredients? I’m willing to go to the store for some additional ingredients needed.”
That’s it—just as if I asked a friend on the phone for a suggestion on what to make for dinner tonight, I asked the OpenAI model.
What it returned blew me away: (please note that formatted the output for visual appearances in this blog post).
“Here’s a simple recipe using the ingredients you have, plus some optional additions you could pick up from the store.
Butterscotch Pumpkin and Vegetable Curry
Ingredients from your pantry/fridge:
- Butterscotch pumpkin
- Carrots
- Zucchini
- Red bell peppers
- Onions
- Potatoes (optional, for a heartier curry)
- Curry powder or paste (red or yellow)
Additions from the store (optional):
- Coconut milk (for a creamier curry)
- Fresh cilantro (for garnish)
- Protein like chickpeas, tofu, or chicken
Instructions:
- Prepare the Veggies: Peel and cube the butterscotch pumpkin, and chop the zucchini, bell peppers, carrots, and potatoes.
- Sauté the Aromatics: In a large pot, sauté the onions in oil until they’re translucent.
- Add Spices: If you have curry powder or paste, add it to the onions and cook for a minute to release the flavours. If you’re using the peanut sauce as a curry base, add it now along with a dash of water.
- Add Veggies: Add the butterscotch pumpkin, carrots, and potatoes (if using). Let them cook for a few minutes.
- Simmer: Add coconut milk (if using) or water/stock, and simmer until the pumpkin and other veggies are tender (about 20 minutes).
- Add Other Veggies: Toss in zucchini and bell peppers, letting them cook for the last 5-7 minutes.
- Season: Taste and adjust seasoning with salt, pepper, or a touch of sugar if needed.
- Serve: Serve your curry over rice (you have poke rice) and garnish with fresh cilantro if you like.
This will result in a rich, creamy, and slightly sweet curry with the pumpkin flavor shining through!Would you like to go ahead with this, or need adjustments?”
Amazing, right?! I was instantly inspired to cook this delicious-sounding meal and ran to the store for some chicken thighs and cilantro. Lucky for me, I already had the coconut milk, which the AI didn’t recognize in the picture.
For this blog post, I asked GPT to create an image inspired by this recipe:
While writing this blog post, I wondered if ChatGPT could give me an accurate estimate of the nutritional value of the dish, so I asked:
Caloric breakdown (per serving):
- B. Pumpkin (100g)
- Calories: 45
- Carbohydrates: 11g
- Protein: 1g
- Fat: 0g
- Carrots (50g)
- Calories: 20
- Carbohydrates: 4.5g
- Protein: 0.5g
- Fat: 0g
- Zucchini (50g)
- Calories: 8
- Carbohydrates: 1.5g
- Protein: 0.5g
- Fat: 0g
- Total:
- Calories: 605 kcal
- Carbohydrates: 86g
- Protein: 28.8g
- Fat: 15.5g
- Bell Pepper (50g)
- Calories: 15
- Carbohydrates: 3g
- Protein: 0.5g
- Fat: 0g
- Onion (30g)
- Calories: 12
- Carbohydrates: 3g
- Protein: 0.3g
- Fat: 0g
- Coconut Milk (50ml)
- Calories: 90
- Carbohydrates: 2g
- Protein: 1g
- Fat: 9g
- Curry Paste (15g)
- Calories: 25
- Carbohydrates: 5g
- Protein: 0.5g
- Fat: 0g
- Rice (200g cooked)
- Calories: 260
- Carbohydrates: 56g
- Protein: 5g
- Fat: 0.5g
- Chicken Thighs (100g)
- Calories: 130
- Carbohydrates: 0g
- Protein: 19g
- Fat: 6g
I am stunned! I checked the values online, and the caloric values only differed slightly (Grutto, 2024a; Voedingscentrum, 2024b). Not only does it give dinner suggestions and inspire me to make dinner with the ingredients I already have at home, but I can also keep a rough estimate of the macros I’ve consumed.
Imagine being on a diet and going out to eat with a friend. You want to keep track of your caloric intake but don’t want to bother bringing a scale to weigh your food with every new dish. Now you just take a picture, upload it to your Instagram story, and later upload it to ChatGPT to make a nutritional value estimate for you.
While this experience was undeniably impressive for me, it’s important to consider some limitations. For instance, the AI didn’t recognize the coconut milk in my picture, which was a key ingredient in the recipe it suggested. This highlights that image recognition technology isn’t foolproof, and you cannot rely on it 100%.
Also, while the nutritional estimates were close to official sources, they weren’t exact. For those with strict dietary requirements or allergies, relying solely on AI for nutritional information might not be a wise idea.
Lastly, uploading photos of your fridge or meals means sharing personal data with an AI service and thus can be a privacy concern. It’s important to be mindful of what you’re sharing and know how that data might be used or stored.
My experiment with using ChatGPT as a personal AI-chef was both enlightening and exciting. The ease of requesting a tailored dinner suggestion and a nutritional breakdown based on the contents of my fridge, shows me the potential of AI in everyday life. While there are limitations to consider, the benefits show a glimpse of the exciting future to come.
In the end, I find it amazing how the technology I first only use as a study and search tool, can also inspire me in other parts of everyday life. With my personal AI-chef, dinner dilemmas are a thing of the past.
Bibliography
Grutto, 2024, Bio Kipdijfilets bereiding en informatie Grutto! Available at: https://www.grutto.com/nl/vleesstuk/bio-kipdijfilet.
OpenAI, 2024, ChatGPT Available at: https://chatgpt.com.
Voedingscentrum, 2024, Hoeveel calorieën zitten erin? – Caloriechecker | Voedingscentrum Available at: https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/vraag-en-antwoord/gezonde-voeding-en-voedingsstoffen/hoeveel-calorieen-zitten-erin-.aspx.
Hey I really like your blog post, I’ve never thought about using ChatGPT to make meal plans like that and I’m definitely going to try it out for myself. Despite the really cool recipe creation I think the macros and calorie calculation is even more impressive. Tracking your calories and nutritional intake while on a diet plan can be really time consuming so as ChatGPT progresses and gets even more advanced it would be really interesting to see if it can become even more accurate with its calculations. You also mentioned the security risks of uploading images and personal belongings to ChatGPT and thats also something I talk about briefly in my blog post. My thought was that if ChatGPT can find a way to ensure personal security and make people feel comfortable sharing more personal information and in turn letting ChatGPT access past conversation history more extensively I think responses could become even more transformative. What are your thoughts on that do you think that is something that we could see more in the future?
Hi Lucas,
I just read your post and I’m reminded of the first time I used ChatGPT for an assignment. I needed to write a short literature review and asked GPT to summarize three articles for me.
I thought it did great, especially with the third article I provided, as it contained exactly the kind of information I was looking for to expand my review. However, upon reading the article myself, as I wanted some context, I found out it had ‘hallucinated’ specific information.
Had I not checked that article properly, I could have made a big mistake, for which only I could be held accountable.
I think we still have a long way to go when it comes to the question of whether we can trust AI with general information. That raises even more questions about whether we can ever trust it with personal information at all!
That said, I do agree with you that letting AI have access to personal data and information could also be very beneficial. For example, I am a visual learner and like to see an image or diagram when something is explained. If ChatGPT knows this about me, it could take that into account when giving its responses.
I guess we’ll see what the future brings. 🙂
That’s actually such a smart way to use it. I’ve tried creating meal plans with ChatGPT before but always felt too lazy to enter everything I have in my fridge, so I’d often end up with recipes that required extra items I didn’t have on hand. I’d either skip the dish or try to find substitutes. Uploading pictures of my fridge would totally solve that issue – I’ll definitely give it a try!
I also think this could be a great way to cut down on food waste. You could just upload photos of ingredients that are about to expire and have ChatGPT suggest recipes to use them up before they go bad. That way, it’s not just about convenience, but also about being more mindful of what we already have and wasting less. It could even be super helpful for meal prepping, making sure nothing gets forgotten in the fridge.
Hey Oryna, Thank you for commenting!
I also try to use as much as I have left in my fridge when cooking ‘every day’ type of meals and nothing special.
And this experiment has shown me that ChatGPT can be that extra sparkle of inspiration needed about leftover ingredients!
A friend of mine actually wrote her thesis about how AI can help reduce food waste in professional kitchens.
I believe she measured differences in waste when a machine of the company Orbisk (https://orbisk.com) was installed. The machine ‘photographs’ the plates of food that return to the kitchen after going out. That information can be used by chefs and restaurant owners when deciding what to order, and how big their portions should be.
Food for thought!
I really like your post and the stepwise listing of steps you took. I tried exactly what you did in the past, but instead of uploading a picture, I wrote all the ingredients myself into ChatGPT. So your post inspired me to save some time and take a picture instead.
Even though you have mentioned the very important and good concerns and possible challenges with that, I would like to add one positive fact to your post. Since we all try to live more sustainably, this way of planning your meals can help you to come up with recipes including ingredients, that might go bad in the upcoming days. This results in less food waste and a more sustainable way of living.
Hi Hanne,
Thank you for your comment!
Indeed I also see the positive side of reducing food waste with this simple application of Generative AI in everyday life.
Can you imagine how much easier planning meals would be if your fridge would ‘know’ what items it contained at all times and what the expiration dates were? I totally see a new version of a smart fridge having these functions in the future!