BalanceBite: An .exe that assists you to plan your meal and says whether a dish is safe to eat

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend

What I Built

I built BalanceBite for someone I love (gotta keep the "who" anonymous). They are having some health issues and from there I got the idea to work on an .exe that uses open weight model at its core and assists them to plan their meal while considering the groceries in stock and the nutrients required.

Demo

Since it is an application that runs locally on your machine, I have posted a video demo and if you want to try out I have uploaded a zip file, download and run the BalanceBite.exe.

Code

I have also uploaded the code to GitHub, check it here

How I Built It

I have used gemma3:4b-it-q4_K_M, an open-weight model, which is the core of the application and running locally on my machine through node-llama-cpp. An Electron app wraps it as a Windows .exe. The user's health issue, restrictions and allergies are saved once as an encrypted profile and added to the model's instructions on every request. The model's output is forced into a fixed JSON format (recipes, nutrients, warnings), and a code-level filter removes any recipe containing an allergen. A second mode checks whether a new food is safe, with the portion size and likely after-effects.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

This app handles sensitive health data, so sending it to a closed API would be a poor fit. Open weights let me keep the model and the data on the user's machine, work fully offline, and pay nothing per use. They also let me control the model's output format and add my own safety checks. Anyone can swap in another open model or adapt the app to another condition.

Feedback

I shared the executable file with them along with a brief idea. It was a surprise and they loved the idea. They shared the feedback:

• the model accurately predicted the nutrients from the ingredients and the after-effect from the dish in "Choose a new food" mode. The project was overall helpful
• the model hallucinated at times even when the health issue was saved in the profile, it took some other issue
• The prompts need to be fine-tuned along with fine-tuning the model
• A feature that can be added is instead of just typing there is an option to upload pics and parse the text as input from the picture

Prize Categories

Best Use of Gemma