RandomBasis

What to eat

Random Food Generator

Can't decide what to eat? Draw a dish - filter by meal or go vegetarian.

Runs locally in your browser. Nothing you generate is ever sent to a server.

Press "Decide For Me" to see a result here.

Meal

About this random food generator

Press the button and a dish comes up. It exists for the moment when everyone agrees they are hungry and nobody will say what they want - the decision is made in a second, and the argument ends.

Deciding what to eat

Choosing food is a classic case of too much choice: the more options there are, the longer the decision takes and the less satisfying it feels. Randomising cuts that short. It also has a quieter use worth knowing about - if the answer comes up and you feel a flicker of disappointment, you have just learned what you actually wanted, which no amount of deliberating was going to tell you.

Filtering by meal

The filter covers breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, snacks and vegetarian dishes. Narrowing before the draw matters here more than in most tools, because a dish that is perfect at eight in the evening is no use at seven in the morning.

Planning a week of meals

Set the quantity to seven with No repeats switched on and one press gives a week of different dinners. Copy All puts them on your clipboard, which is a faster start to a shopping list than staring at a fridge. Draw again if two or three do not suit - the point is a starting shape, not a fixed plan.

Common uses

How the randomness works

The list is filtered to the meal you chose, then a dish is drawn using your browser's cryptographic random source with rejection sampling, so no dish is favoured. Batches without repeats use a Fisher-Yates shuffle driven by the same source.

How do I decide what to eat?

Press Decide For Me and one dish comes up. If you feel disappointed by the answer, that is useful information too - it usually means you already knew what you wanted.

Can I limit it to dinner ideas?

Yes. The filter narrows the pool to breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, snacks or vegetarian dishes.

Can I get a few options to choose between?

Yes. Raise the quantity to draw three or four dishes at once and pick from a short list instead of the whole world.

Are there vegetarian options?

Yes. The vegetarian filter draws only from meat-free dishes, and several dishes in the other categories are vegetarian too.

Can I use this to plan a week of meals?

Yes. Set the quantity to seven with No repeats on and you get a week of different dinners in one press, ready to copy into a shopping list.

Is the choice actually random?

Yes. Each dish is drawn with your browser's cryptographic random source, so every dish in the chosen category has an equal chance.