Show HN: Nutrepedia – nutrition info in 29 locales built with Clojure and Htmx

(nutrepedia.com)

31 points by llovan2 hours ago

9 comments

  • laurentlb48 minutes ago
    Is there a way to set the default unit? I'd prefer to see the information per 100g by default (instead using random units).
    • llovan34 minutes ago
      thanks for the feedback. That's a good suggestion. I will be adding some tweaks soon for improved unit handling. Also another idea I had that I want to implement is being able to compare several foods side by side in a split view (on desktop or tablet landscape modes).
  • cd4plus1 hour ago
    I can't enter a serving size that's not a whole number on mobile because it automatically closes the keyboard when the text field is cleared
    • llovan1 hour ago
      Thanks for catching that. Will fix soon.
  • olarm1 hour ago
    Very nice, what is the source of the data?
    • llovan51 minutes ago
      The only source currently for all data is the USDA's Food Data Central. I'm planning on adding more nutrient data sources in the near future.
  • Finnucane20 minutes ago
    The search seems a bit weird. A search for salmon includes almonds in the results, and a search for spinach includes Tahitian taro.
    • llovan15 minutes ago
      Thanks for the feedback. Currently in addition to fuzzy matching the search system will match against synonyms broadly, so some unintended leafy greens would match Spinach as in your example results. I'll have to tweak the fuzzy matching a bit.
  • razorson1 hour ago
    Nice great job, how do you handle multi languages?
    • llovan1 hour ago
      Thank you! Each locale has its own route terms, UI strings, portion terms, localized food names, synonyms, slugs, and search behavior.<p>The app uses ICU MessageFormat for pluralization&#x2F;units and locale-aware number&#x2F;unit formatting. Search varies by script: Latin languages use pg_trgm&#x2F;unaccent, CJK and other non-Latin scripts use PGroonga, and romanized aliases are indexed separately so Latin-keyboard queries can still find native-script foods.<p>For localization I do use multiple LLM passes, but mostly as a structured localization pipeline rather than a one-shot translator: generate localized names&#x2F;aliases&#x2F;slugs&#x2F;content from canonical food and nutrient data, then run separate review&#x2F;evaluation passes and human spot checks.<p>The hard part is regional naming and portions, not basic translation. For example, in Spanish, &quot;Potato&quot; as papa vs patata is the simple version of the problem.
  • recursivedoubts1 hour ago
    awesome, very good looking and simple, useful functionality
  • setnone1 hour ago
    cool! i see at least two reasons in the title to upvote this
    • llovan57 minutes ago
      lol, ty, Clojure + HTMX have been an amazing combo for this project. and postgres too, for the DB.
  • Kuyawa1 hour ago
    Simple and beautiful, I love it.
  • llovan1 hour ago
    Hi HN, I&#x27;m Jovan. I&#x27;ve been building Nutrepedia part-time from Monterrey, Mexico.<p>It&#x27;s a multilingual nutrition reference site: 1,635 foods rendered into 47,415 localized pages across 29 regional locales. Each page has nutrition facts, localized names, portion terms, regional routing, imagery, and short food context.<p>The stack is Clojure, HTTP-Kit, Compojure, Hiccup, HTMX, and Postgres. Postgres handles the food data, localized content, admin workflow, task queues, search, and evaluation records.<p>The search piece has been the most interesting technically. Latin-script fuzzy search uses pg_trgm and unaccent. CJK and other non-Latin scripts use PGroonga. Romanized aliases are indexed separately, so a query like &quot;rasbhari&quot; can find a Hindi food name like &quot;rasbhari&quot; &#x2F; &quot;रसभरी&quot;.<p>I built this because most nutrition tools feel calorie-first, signup-first, and English focused. I wanted the reference layer to be free and useful before asking anyone to track meals or create an account.<p>I&#x27;d especially appreciate feedback on search, localization mistakes, whether the pages are useful before tracking exists, and any obvious technical blind spots.
    • snowpid28 minutes ago
      cool projects. bear in mind some languages like Spanish are spoken across different countries. German for example is spoken in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Using the Germany flag is misleading.