Never a food photo
The leading calorie apps depend on photographing your plate after you eat. Rasoi tells you what to serve before the meal and asks for one tap after. Leaving out the camera is the whole idea.
Confirming a family dinner: one tap.
A household nutrition operating system for Indian homes. What each person should eat, how much to cook and serve from one shared dish, and what to buy. When real life gets in the way, it re-plans. Never a food photo.
Working prototype · closed beta in preparation
The household nutrition
operating system
Every Indian home answers four questions, every day: what should we eat, how much, what do we need to buy, and what do we already have. Rasoi answers all four, every day, for every person at the table, from one shared dish.
Usually one person carries all four questions in their head. Today's apps answer one or two of them and hand the rest back. Rasoi is built for the household, not the lone dieter: one pot of dal, and a different serving for each person who eats from it.
The problem
Existing products answer one or two of these questions and leave the rest to the person who already carries the load.
- 01
What should we eat?
Different people, different goals: a vegetarian and a peanut allergy at the same table.
- 02
How much?
One pot of dal, but a teenager, a parent losing weight and a grandparent need different servings.
- 03
What do we buy?
The weekly list is guesswork. Something always runs out and something always goes to waste.
- 04
What do we already have?
Nobody knows what's left in the kitchen until it's time to cook.
Why now
India's plate got easier, not healthier. For sixty years, convenience decided what the country grows, mills, rations and cooks. The bill is arriving as a public-health crisis.
- 56.4%
of India's total disease burden is attributed to unhealthy diets.1
- 101M
adults are living with diabetes, and another 136 million have prediabetes.2
- 57%
of women aged 15–49 are anaemic, as are 67% of children aged 6–59 months.3
- 62%
of daily energy comes from carbohydrates, mostly white rice, milled grains and sugar. Protein: about 12%.4
It is a double burden. More than one in three children under five is stunted, while 24% of women and 23% of men are overweight or obese, up from 21% and 19% in 2015–16.3 More than a third of adults have high blood pressure.2
How it happened
Two shortcuts made Indian food easier to grow, sell, store and cook. Oil made it tastier. Health was the step we skipped.
- 01 · The field
Rice and wheat got the high-yield seeds and the prices. Land under millets shrank by about 60%, to 14.7 million hectares.5
- 02 · The market
The state buys 45–70% of India's wheat and rice, but only 1–3% of its millets.6
- 03 · The mill
Millet flour keeps only 20–30 days, so it is harder to mill, ship and stock.6
- 04 · The kitchen
Cheap rice and wheat arrive through the ration system. Millets are now 6–7% of the staple diet.6
- 05 · The pan
Oil makes food quicker and tastier. Use per person is up 84% in rural India since 2004–05.8
- 06 · The plate
62% of energy now comes from carbohydrates and 12% from protein, and saturated fat is over the healthy limit in all but four states.4
Millets fell from 32.9 kg to 4.2 kg per person a year between 1962 and 2010. Wheat almost doubled, from 27 kg to 52 kg.
−87%millets eaten per person, 1962 to 2010.
+93%wheat eaten per person over the same years.
| Grain | 1962 | 2010 |
|---|---|---|
| Millets | 32.9 | 4.2 |
| Wheat | 27 | 52 |
~3×Overall oil use per person has nearly tripled since 2001, to about 23.5 kg a year.9
56%of the edible oil India uses is imported.8
| Area | 2004–05 | 2022–23 |
|---|---|---|
| Rural | 5.76 | 10.58 |
| Urban | 7.92 | 11.78 |
What it costs
The cost shows up on the plate. People eating the most carbohydrate had 30% higher odds of newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes than those eating the least. Swapping some of it for plant or dairy protein was linked to lower risk.
With oil, it is the kind of fat more than the amount: on average total fat stays within national guidelines, but saturated fat is above the limit for metabolic health in all but four states, and healthier fats stay low.4 In April 2025 the Prime Minister backed a call to cut cooking oil by 10% to fight obesity.9
These are associations from a large national survey, not proof of cause.
Where Rasoi comes in
Rasoi doesn't ask a household to give up what's easy. It makes the balanced plate the easy one: protein, vegetables and grains measured out per person from one shared pot, oil given in millilitres instead of poured by habit, and the shopping list already written.
See how it works
Sources
- ICMR–National Institute of Nutrition. Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024. Summary
- Anjana RM et al. Metabolic non-communicable disease health report of India: the ICMR–INDIAB national cross-sectional study. Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology 11(7):474–489, 2023. doi:10.1016/S2213-8587(23)00119-5
- Ministry of Health and Family Welfare & IIPS. National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019–21: compendium of fact sheets, India, 2021. Fact sheets
- Anjana RM et al. Dietary profiles and associated metabolic risk factors in India from the ICMR–INDIAB survey-21. Nature Medicine 31, 2025. doi:10.1038/s41591-025-03949-4
- Banerjee R et al. Trend analysis of the changing landscape in the area and production of millet cultivation in India. Bhartiya Krishi Anusandhan Patrika 39(1), 2024, citing the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. doi:10.18805/BKAP720
- Kumar S et al. Farm to fork: an overview of millet supply chains in India. Ideas for India / ICRISAT, October 2023. Article
- Kane-Potaka J et al. Assessing millets and sorghum consumption behavior in urban India: a large-scale survey. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 5:680777, 2021. doi:10.3389/fsufs.2021.680777
- Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. National Mission on Edible Oils: strengthening India's edible oil ecosystem, 8 December 2025. Press note
- Mukherjee V. Every Indian now consumes 24 kg edible oil a year, triple the 2001 level. Business Standard, 21 April 2025, citing Mint and the Solvent Extractors' Association of India. Article
“Tell the household what to cook and how much before the meal. Then ask for a single tap afterwards. Never a photograph of the plate.”
How it works
A closed loop, not a food diary.
Calorie apps ask you to record what you ate after the fact. Rasoi works the other way round, and the next plan knows what really happened.
- TodayThu · 3 peopleDinner · next to confirmChole, rice & bhindi sabziAAnitavegetarian≈ 410 gRRavipeanut allergy≈ 520 gMMeeravegetarian≈ 340 gEveryone ate as plannedLessMoreSwappedSkipped
Then the loop starts again, and the next plan knows what really happened.
Why it's different
“An AI tells you what to eat” is crowded, and general assistants are already there. Three product laws make Rasoi something else, and we don't bend them.
One dish, different servings
The household is the user. Rasoi says what belongs on each plate and how much, served from one shared dish. Dishes are suggestions, not orders. That's how dietitians actually coach.
~150 g cooked grain · ~100 g dal · ~120 g vegetable · 1 tsp oil
Honest about confidence
Cooking changes nutrients, and by how much is uncertain. Rasoi gives ranges with a confidence label. It never gives falsely exact percentages or dresses up an estimate as a measurement.
“Steaming generally keeps more vitamin C than long boiling” (confidence: medium)
01
Household profiles
Everyone in the home with their diet, allergies and goals, editable as life changes.
02
Per-person portions
Exact servings in grams from a shared dish, sized to each person's targets.
03
Cooking view
Ingredient amounts, oil in ml, salt in grams, the method, and nutrient notes with a confidence label.
04
One-tap confirmation
As planned, less, more, swapped, skipped. A whole family in a single tap.
05
Pantry ledger
Shelves grouped by aisle, quick restock, and short check-ins when stock is uncertain.
06
Grocery basket
The week's plan minus what's at home, as a list you can take to any store.
07
Automatic re-planning
Ate out? Skipped lunch? The rest of the week adjusts, within each person's upper limits.
08
Allergy-safe by design
An excluded food never reaches the planner for that person, so it can't end up on their plate.
09
Variety you set
Choose how many days before a dish comes back. Everyday staples like roti, rice and sambar don't count as repeats.
10
Salt in plain sight
Each pot and each plate shows the salt the recipe adds. How much to use stays your call; the plan doesn't change.
11
Your week at a glance
Which meals got an answer, and how many took a single tap. No calorie scoreboard.
12
Quiet reminders
Off until you turn them on. Scheduled on the phone, and the lock screen never shows a name or a dish.
Where we are
The engine is built and the full loop works end to end. The hard part came first: nutrition arithmetic, safety rules and the meal optimiser, each with automated tests. Then came the app around it.
- Built
Nutrition engine with tracked sources
Every value records its source, version and confidence, and is checked against hand-worked examples.
- Built
Allergy and dietary rules engine
Excluded foods are removed before planning starts. The release test allows zero violations.
- Built
Household meal and portion optimiser
Plans the whole household at once, and stops with a stated reason if no safe plan exists.
- Built
Real Indian dishes, breakfast to dinner
93 plates from 61 recipes, from poha and dosa to ragi mudde and fish curry. No dish comes back sooner than the household chooses, and each meal carries its share of the day instead of one oversized plate.
- Built
Mobile app: setup, Today, Week, Progress, Cooking, Settings
Every core task has a tap budget. Optional meal reminders stay on the phone. The Android beta build is set up; signed builds and device testing come next.
- Built
Pantry, grocery basket and re-planning
The loop closes: a deviation re-plans what's left of the day and keeps the rest of the week. The shopping list asks for a packet of garam masala, not each of its spices by the gram.
- Built
Accounts, consent, data export and deletion
Privacy controls were built before the beta, not bolted on after. Deleting an account removes the sign-in too, not just the data.
- In progress
Expert review of food data and safety rules
A registered dietitian has reviewed the nutrient targets, recipes and plates over seven rounds. Allergen declarations go to a food-safety reviewer next. Required before any real household relies on the plans.
- Next
The beta menu, weighed in a real kitchen
The first beta starts with 28 dishes. Their cooked weights and servings will be measured at the stove, not estimated.
- Next
Closed beta with real households
Measuring the one number that matters.
Walkthroughs, October 2026. A family of three (one peanut allergy, two vegetarians) went through consent → 7-day plan → meal taps → pantry → grocery basket → unplanned meal → re-plan → data export. A second household, set up from scratch: an adult over sixty, a heavy-activity adult and a member allergic to milk and gluten, all vegetarian. In both, no excluded food reached anyone; in the second, all 70 servings checked were vegetarian.
What households told us
We asked thirty households what's hardest. The answers were mixed, which argues for one product across meals, quantities and groceries, not another single-purpose app.
The beta's success test
What share of meals are confirmed with one tap on an existing plan, rather than fresh manual entry?
“What's the biggest problem in your household's food routine?”
Household interviews, September 2026, n = 30. An exploratory sample, not a population estimate. Observed usability sessions come next.
Roadmap & business model
Prove the habit first, then build the business on it. Each phase has a test it must pass before the next begins. No spend on growth until households keep coming back.
- Done
Foundation & engine
Specs, household interviews, food data, targets, safety rules, optimiser.
- Done
Alpha & the full loop
API, mobile app, plan → confirm → pantry → grocery → re-plan.
- Next · preparing
Closed beta
100–300 households. Passes if one-tap confirmation holds and people are still using it at week 8.
- Then
Commercial v1
Subscriptions, family plan, a web app for household admin, support.
- Later
Commerce
Ordering through grocery retailers and ONDC; a dashboard for dietitians.
- Only once retention is proven
Clinical
A mode for clinicians, after a regulatory assessment.
How Rasoi makes money
Free to start. Families pay because it replaces several apps.
1
Free tier
One profile, a basic dashboard and a manual list. The way in.
2
Premium individual & family
Annual billing from day one. The family plan costs more because it replaces several tools.
3
Grocery referral
Commission on baskets the plan already produces. Always disclosed, and always ranked below nutrition and safety.
4
Dietitian & clinic dashboard
Professionals manage client households on the same engine.
No advertising. We never sell health profiles. Either would break the trust the product depends on.
Built to be trusted
An AI that explains the plan, but never makes up the numbers. These rules are written into the design, and automated tests check the app follows them.
AI
The AI doesn't calculate
Language models explain decisions and understand requests. Amounts, portions and targets come from a tested calculation engine, never from a model.
Safety
Allergies are hard limits
A food a person must avoid is removed before planning starts. It isn't a preference the optimiser can trade away. An intolerance is excluded exactly like an allergy, traces included.
Provenance
Every number has a source
Each nutrient value records where it came from, which version and how confident we are. Every plan keeps an audit record.
Commerce
Money never outranks safety
Any sponsored grocery item is labelled and always ranked below suitability and safety. We don't experiment on that rule.
Privacy
Your data stays yours
Consent controls processing. Export or delete your household's data at any time. The app never uses the camera.
Re-planning
No overloading to catch up
A missed meal isn't piled onto dinner. The rest of the week is re-planned within each person's upper limits.
Early access & investment
We're preparing a closed beta with urban Indian households, and talking to investors who back products that take trust seriously.
If that's you, or if your family wants to try Rasoi first, write to us.