Ask HN: Open source food?

I think there is a value to this not because I want to replicate your product but because I want to know more about what’s in the food. For examples, what are the ingredients for “spices” and “natural flavors”?

I have a couple of reasons:

1. I want to know what crap i put into my body. If I’m going to eat crap, I want it to be my choice and I want to k ow what’s in my food.

2. I have a kid with severe peanut and tree but allergy. 1st such in our family. Now I have to read every package. I can’t tell you how frustrating that is.

On a related topic, you may wish to consider including open sourcing your cross contamination prevention policies (if any) so that those with food allergies can have a clear picture of if they can eat your food safely. If my wife and I are not confident in the (lack of) cross contamination, we don’t let our child eat the food even if there are no tree nuts or peanuts listed.

Before having a kid with such allergies, I thought so many parents were over reacting. I mean, few people my age have them, so it wasn’t a thing when I was a kid. It worries me why the rates of food allergies are so drastically higher. I suspect it has to do with eating more processed foods. I’m not opposed to processed foods, but I’d like to know if/when I’m eating them and what they are.

I know there is something called open source Cola: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_cola

There's people sharing recipes for soylent-like meal replacements: https://www.completefoods.co/diy/recipes

Regarding concepts from software, not sure. Source control is an obvious one for versioning, wikis make good documentation, but those aren't that software-specific...