Can I Eat This

🥫  A Friendly AI App That Saves Your Stomach, and Your Groceries

Client: Internal R&D project
Scope: UX/UI · Mobile App Design · AI Integration · Web Companion
Deliverables: Android App · Website · Brand & Interaction Design
Tech Stack: Kotlin · Android SDK · OpenAI API · Firebase · HTML/CSS
Live site: canieatexpired.com

💡 The Problem

We’ve all been there. You open your fridge, spot a tub of yogurt that expired three days ago, and ask yourself:

“Can I eat this?”

Instead of panic-Googling “Is expired yogurt safe” or calling your mom, we built a digital assistant that knows the answer, and won’t judge you.

Thus was born:
Can I Eat This? An Android app (with a web companion) that helps users make quick, informed decisions about food safety and expiration.

🧠 Our Design Philosophy

This project started from a place of curiosity and real-world pain points. We wanted to solve a boring but common problem with smart tech and delightful UX.

Key values we focused on:

• 🧠 Trust: Users need to feel confident in the answers
• ⚡ Speed: Nobody wants to wait when food is on the line
• 😄 Tone: Make it fun, not clinical
• 📲 Utility: It had to work in 10 seconds or less

🔍 User Research & Personas

We interviewed friends, did online surveys, and paid attention to the comments on food forums and Reddit threads. Some patterns emerged:

User Persona 1: The Anxious Eater
“Sniff test? What sniff test? Just tell me if this chicken is going to kill me.”

User Persona 2: The Minimal Waster
“Expiration dates are a scam. I just want reassurance.”

User Persona 3: The Curious Cook
“I’m learning how to store food better and waste less.”

From here, we crafted a UX that’s fast, reassuring, and friendly.

🎨 UI / UX Breakdown

🍳 Interaction Flow

Open app → Type in the food → Get a clear, AI-informed response → Done.
Or even better: Just ask your question naturally.
e.g. “Can I eat spinach that expired two days ago?” or “Eggs past best before, still okay?”

🟢 Home Screen

Clean, bold design with a large search field.
Suggested prompts help users understand what kind of questions the AI can answer.

🧾 Results Screen

• Clear yes/no/maybe answers
• Backed by AI-generated explanations
• Visual indicators (green/yellow/red) for safety confidence
• Option to ask follow-up questions or learn food safety tips

🎯 Micro UX Features

• Auto-suggest for common foods
• Recently searched items
• Smart typo correction
• “Fun Fact” modules on food trivia, storage hacks, and shelf life

💻 Technical Implementation

Android App (Kotlin + Android SDK)

• Built natively in Kotlin for performance and access to deep Android integration
• Smart caching via Firebase for frequently asked questions
• Integrated voice search using Android Speech API

AI Integration

• Used the OpenAI API to power natural language processing
• Prompt engineering to reduce hallucinations and provide concise, friendly answers
• Combined with in-house food safety sources for better reliability

Firebase Backend

• Stores popular queries
• Enables analytics tracking on which foods cause the most confusion (spoiler: chicken, milk, eggs, and leftovers)

🌐 The Web Companion

We mirrored the experience on canieatexpired.com to make the tool more accessible.

• Responsive design for mobile browsers
• Identical question/answer flow
• SEO-optimized pages for each food (great organic traffic strategy)
• Friendly meta titles like:

• • “Can I Eat Expired Eggs?”

  • “Is it safe to eat cheese after expiration?”

🧩 Design Challenges & Our Solutions

🧠 Challenge #1: Avoid Fear Mongering

Food safety is serious, but we didn’t want to scare users.

Solution:
We used a conversational tone with gentle wording.
“Probably okay if it smells fine” is better than “MAY CAUSE SEVERE ILLNESS.”

We also introduced “Confidence Levels” — a mix of colors, emojis, and explanations, to communicate subtlety.

📉 Challenge #2: Prevent Info Overload

Users want a fast answer, not a lecture.

Solution:
We designed short, bold answers, followed by expandable “More Info” links.
This structure respects both the impatient user and the curious one.

⚙️ Challenge #3: AI’s Love for Fiction

The OpenAI API is powerful, but it sometimes makes things up. Dangerous when you’re dealing with food!

Solution:
We fine-tuned the prompts, limited output scope, and included human-reviewed answers for common items.
For borderline or risky queries, we also prompt users to consult official guidelines or toss the food.

🚀 Real-World Impact

Though the app started as a side project, the response was overwhelming:

• 5,000+ downloads in the first month
• Featured on Reddit in /r/food and /r/lifehacks
• Thousands of questions submitted (Top 3: milk, chicken, leftovers)
• Organic web traffic growth thanks to SEO-rich query pages

Users have called it:
“A lifesaver for anxious cooks.”
“Way better than scrolling through 10 contradictory blog posts.”
“The app I didn’t know I needed.”

📌 Why We Love This Project

Can I Eat This? represents everything we believe in as a design and development studio:

• 🧠 Build with empathy
• ⚡ Move fast and ship useful
• 🧪 Combine tech + humanity in clever ways
• 😄 Make serious things feel a little lighter

We turned a universal daily doubt into a crisp digital experience that solves a real-world need. And we had fun doing it.