The DigiMeals Open Recipe API provides access to a set of structured recipes. In the current state, the API only provides two endpoints where one returns a very limited info about a list of recipes and the other sends a lot of data about a single recipe in one request. To get relevant data for a list of recipes a client has to send a separate request for each recipe in the list. Then, additional data from other data sources needs to be collected to show a short info about the recipe in the list. This causes the client to make multiple requests to the API and other sources just to show the list with a few details.

The goal of the project is to suggest and design a different structure of the recipe data each API endpoint returns and to make the API calls much easier.

Source code

Background

The DigiMeals Open Recipe API provides access to a continously expanding set of fully structured recipes. These recipes include not only the directions and ingredients as a text but also detailed parameters for each recipe step. The parameters provide easily accessible data to show users additional information, create new features or conduct analyses. The structured recipe data is particularly useful for connecting with smart kitchen devices or integrating into an ecosystem of applications or devices.

Impact

The Open Recipe API has already been used as basis for several projects at the hackathon, e.g.:
Food Matters
BEAT the food waste
Standardized Meal System
With the here suggested improvements, more projects will be able to use the API in an easier manner.

Further development

The API will be continously expanded and improved. Initial feedback was collected during the hackathon and any kind of feedback or issues can be raised on the GitHub repository.