# SafeBites: A Zero-Backend AI Meal Planner for My Roommate's Allergies

> Source: <https://dev.to/badshahaditya57sketch/safebites-a-zero-backend-ai-meal-planner-for-my-roommates-allergies-pg5>
> Published: 2026-10-03 18:24:22+00:00

*This is a submission for the [Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend](https://dev.to/challenges/hacktoberfest-weekend-2026-10-01)*

I built **SafeBites**, a lightweight, client-side meal planner specifically for my college roommate who has strict dietary restrictions. He frequently struggles to figure out what is safe to cook using the random ingredients left in our fridge. This tool takes our current ingredient list and generates safe, custom recipes tailored exactly to his allergies, solving a daily headache for him. 

Here is the live, deployed web application:

[https://badshahaditya57-sketch.github.io/safebites-meal-planner/](https://badshahaditya57-sketch.github.io/safebites-meal-planner/)

[https://github.com/badshahaditya57-sketch/safebites-meal-planner/](https://github.com/badshahaditya57-sketch/safebites-meal-planner/)

I kept the stack incredibly simple by building a zero-backend web application using static HTML, vanilla JavaScript, and Tailwind CSS. For the AI component, it utilizes prompt engineering to strictly enforce allergen exclusions via the Gemini API, executing entirely within the browser's local session.

Open innovation was critical for this build because it allowed me to design a tool that requires absolutely no backend infrastructure or databases. By keeping execution strictly client-side, it keeps my roommate's personal dietary and health data completely off external servers that we don't control. It costs us nothing to host, and anyone can fork the open-source repository to run it locally for their own family members.