Mind Your Bite
Your AI-powered kitchen companion
Project Overview
Mind Your Bite is an AI-powered kitchen companion designed to minimize household food waste.
Instead of relying on memory, manual tracking, or occasional meal planning, the app actively supports users in making timely decisions about what to cook, consume, and save.
The core idea behind the project was simple: people don’t waste food because they don’t care—they waste food because managing it requires consistent attention, and life gets in the way.
This project explores how AI can shift that burden away from the user and into the system.
My Role
Product Designer (end-to-end)
Research Methods
Interviews, Surveys, Competitive Analysis, Literature Review
Tools
Figma, Figma Make, Marvin
Platform
Mobile App
Problem Space
We waste food at massive scale! And it majorly comes from our homes
Food waste is one of the most solvable environmental problems, yet existing solutions tackle only one piece of the puzzle.
It is often framed as an awareness issue, but research revealed that awareness isn’t the problem. Most people already feel bad about wasting food. They know it’s financially wasteful and environmentally harmful, yet it continues to happen.
43%
Homes
40%
Resturants
16%
Farms
02%
Manufacturers
Food Waste at Home accounts for 43% or 27 million tons of all food waste. (Venkat, 2011)
Rachel, 38
The Eco-Conscious Parent
“Managing food requires ongoing micro-decisions—what to cook, what to prioritize, what might expire soon—and those decisions are easy to ignore when you have a 3 year old and a full time job.”
Pain: No time to track food; hates wasting money
Needs: Fast, smart reminders + easy recipes
Emotional need: Feel "on top of things" despite chaos
Design trigger: Expiry alerts + 1-tap recipe suggest
Primary Research Insights
Managing a kitchen is a massive "cognitive load."
To understand real behaviors around food waste, I conducted 45 surveys and 8 in-depth interviews with individuals across different lifestyles, including students, working professionals, and families.
What became clear is that food waste is a behavioral gap, not a knowledge gap. People forget what they have in their fridge, underestimate how quickly things expire, and struggle to plan meals consistently. Even those who try to be mindful fall back into reactive behavior when they get busy.
Top Barrier
Top Motivators
47 Surveys
08 Interviews
User Personas
Rachel, 38
The Eco-Conscious Parent
“Managing food requires ongoing micro-decisions—what to cook, what to prioritize, what might expire soon—and those decisions are easy to ignore when you have a 3 year old and a full time job."
Pain: No time to track food; hates wasting money
Needs: Fast, smart reminders + easy recipes
Emotional need: Feel "on top of things" despite chaos
Design trigger: Expiry alerts + 1-tap recipe suggest
Leo, 31
The Busy Professional
"Between work and life, tracking what’s in the back of the fridge feels like a second job."
Pain: Over-buys, forgets what's in the fridge
Needs: Visual food tracker & quick recipes
Emotional need: Feel empowered and resourceful
Design trigger: Visual inventory + AI meal ideas
Framing the Opportunity
How might we reduce the cognitive effort required to manage food, and instead create a system that actively guides users toward better food management?
The Solution
Mind Your Bite is designed as a smart kitchen companion that continuously answers a simple question for the user: what can I cook with the food that's about to expire?
The app tracks food inventory, predicts freshness, and surfaces timely recommendations—whether that’s consuming something before it expires or suggesting a recipe based on available ingredients. It also reflects the user’s impact over time, reinforcing positive behavior through visible outcomes.
Prototype Walkthough
