VeggSavvy is a vegetarian and Jain-focused recipe and nutrition platform that enables users to explore recipes, view detailed ingredient lists, and access structured nutrition data. The platform combines recipe discovery with ingredient-level and recipe-level nutritional insights. It integrates third-party APIs for nutrition and ingredient metadata, provides e-commerce with Stripe payments, and supports push/SMS notifications. The system includes religious calendar features and dietary alignment tailored to the Jain community. My role: Software Engineer (Developer & Contributor) — bug fixes, nutrition database (NutritionX-style), domain alignment (Jain/vegetarian).
VeggSavvy
Vegetarian & Jain Recipe & Nutrition Platform | Yii 2 Full Stack
Project Overview
My Role
- Software Engineer (Developer & Contributor)
- Bug fixes and stability; nutrition database (NutritionX-style implementation)
- Domain alignment (Jain/vegetarian focus, religious calendar)
Key Features
Recipe Management
Create, edit, approve/reject recipes with steps, servings, cooking time, meal types, cuisines, diet/health labels, and video links.
Nutrition System
Ingredient-level nutrition (per unit); recipe-level aggregated nutrients; FDC-style structured database; integration with Edamam (nutrition) and Spoonacular (ingredient metadata).
Ingredient Catalog
Ingredients with units, quantities, price, calories, and nutrition linkage.
Jain / Religious Features
Jain calendar and religious calendar modules; vegetarian-first positioning and content alignment.
E-Commerce
Cart, checkout, orders, subscriptions; Stripe payment integration.
User Engagement & Admin
Profiles, favorites, ratings, comments; push (Firebase), SMS (Twilio), email; dashboard (users, recipes, logs, pending emails); backup, logging, SEO, sitemap.
Technical Challenges
Modular Architecture
Ensuring separation of concerns using Yii 2 modules for payments, chat, API, and backup while maintaining performance and maintainability.
Nutrition Data Structure
Designed and expanded nutrition data structure for ingredients and recipes; implemented USDA FoodData Central–style fields and recipe-level nutrition display.
Secure Payments & Subscriptions
Integrated Stripe with recurring billing and secure transaction handling.
Results & Impact
- Designed and expanded nutrition data structure; ingredient model with US government–style nutrition (fdc_id, totalNutrients, totalDaily, etc.).
- Built tbl_nutrition_detail for per-ingredient, per-unit nutrition; recipe-level nutrition on detail pages and PDFs.
- Platform tailored to Jain/vegetarian community with religious calendar and dietary compliance.
- Implemented secure Stripe payments and subscription handling; comprehensive admin tools.
Technologies Used
Yii 2 (PHP >= 7.4)
MySQL
Bootstrap 4
jQuery & jQuery UI
Highcharts
FullCalendar
stripe/stripe-php
twilio/sdk
widgets
ckeditor
RESTful API & Swagger
Codeception (Testing)
Nutrition Database Integration