Cooking can be difficult to learn without proper tutorial, but that could change through an app being developed at MSU.
Environmental geography senior David Welsh is part of Food Design Headquarters, which is developing the MyPalate app focusing on promoting cooking for millennials by millennials.
In the app, people will be able to create and share their recipes. Users can also search for their favorite restaurants and chefs.
“I created the MyPalate app just to get people and millennial generation interested in cooking again," Welsh said. "You’ve got Spoon University and Food52 and others like (Tasty) that realistically there’s no connection to it. You can get online but you can never connect with anyone.”
Welsh and his team's plan to increase interest in cooking for millennials is to focus on the connection and credibility within the MyPalate app.
“To get people interested in cooking, we want to build a game into the app," he said. "The app is based on a ranking system that basically is designed to compete with your friends, colleagues, peers and also to validate a professional as credible.”
He said he envisions connections being made by people from all around the country.
“What I want is for the average housewife in Nebraska to be able to log onto the app and be able to connect with a five-star chef in New York," he said.
The inspiration for the MyPalate app came to Welsh through a conference he went to and what he observed while he attended it.
“I decided to create it in large part because I was at South by Southwest and I saw a need for a food app to be created that would make it so the average person could approach food culture," Welsh said.
Food culture was important for Welsh to share with others because he believes many people, especially in the millennial generation, are cooking less, he said.
“We need to do something to get the general public interested in food culture because it’s one of the most fundamental rights and with how rapidly the average person isn’t cooking anymore, we need to do something that will make it so that the average person has an interest in food and food culture,” Welsh said.
The MyPalate app will begin with games but might also extend into different parts of culture. He said he might consider expanding into fashion and art culture.
A goal Welsh has set out on is to have at least 15 beta testers ready to try the app before the end of January.
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