# Easymeals

<mark style="color:$info;">`food`</mark> ​​ <mark style="color:$info;">`health`</mark>​ ​ <mark style="color:$info;">`ecosystem`</mark>  <mark style="color:$info;">`personalized nutrition`</mark> ​ <mark style="color:$info;">`flexmeals`</mark>​ ​

<figure><img src="/files/Om0KWC4ovQnfq1chwC0P" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

#### **A complete food ecosystem where healthy eating becomes a practice, not a project. Open content, a living practice world, and a daily companion connected by a single membership.**

Most healthy eating products solve one piece of the puzzle. A recipe site. A meal planner. A tracking app. Easymeals solves the system. Built on seven years of food R\&D and tested in real-world settings from preschool kitchens to elite athletic performance, Easymeals brings four operational components into one coherent experience designed around how people actually live.

<table data-header-hidden><thead><tr><th width="196" valign="top"></th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td valign="top"><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Stage</strong></mark></td><td>Beta (scheduled release 2026)</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Type</strong></mark></td><td>Ecosystem</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Horizons</strong></mark></td><td>1 · Living Nourishment</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Lab</strong></mark></td><td>Open Food Lab</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Innitiated</strong></mark></td><td>2019</td></tr></tbody></table>

<a href="https://www.easymeals.com" class="button primary" data-icon="globe-pointer">easymeals.com</a>  ​

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## **Overview**

Food is one of humanity's most fundamental relationships and one of its most fraught in modern life. Information is abundant. Diets multiply. Recipe sites scroll endlessly. Yet the gap between knowing what to eat and actually eating well keeps getting wider. Easymeals exists to close that gap, not with another diet but with a complete food ecosystem designed for how people actually live.

{% tabs %}
{% tab title="Why" %} <sup><mark style="color:$primary;">**Why it exists**<mark style="color:$primary;"></sup>

Healthy eating fails for the same reasons across most lives. Too much information. Too little time. Too little structural support. Most products in this space treat the symptom by adding more content to an already overwhelmed person.

Easymeals exists because closing the gap between intent and outcome requires structural redesign, not better content. Healthy eating is not a knowledge problem or a willpower problem. It is a design problem.
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="How" %} <sup><mark style="color:$primary;">**How it works**<mark style="color:$primary;"></sup>

Through an integrated ecosystem of four operational components, connected by a single membership. Easymeals.com is the open front door with eight content categories, mostly free, some highly curated paid offerings. Easymeals Pass unlocks deeper layers without tiers or upsells.

School of Food is where content becomes capacity through community-based practice across six domains of food experience. FoodKit holds the daily tools, guides, and references for cooking, planning, and eating well in real life.
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="What" %} <sup><mark style="color:$primary;">**What it is**<mark style="color:$primary;"></sup>

A complete food ecosystem with four components, built on seven years of food R\&D and tested in real-world settings from preschool meals to elite athletic performance.

Meals are not recipes. They are living artifacts designed for substitution and personalization through Flexmeal logic. Skills are learned through play. Personalized nutrition is the foundational principle, not a feature added on top. The full experience lives at easymeals.com..
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="Who" %} <sup><mark style="color:$primary;">**Who it's for**<mark style="color:$primary;"></sup>

Anyone seeking a healthier, more joyful relationship with food, on their own terms. More specifically: adults reshaping their relationship with food after diets and willpower stopped working, families building healthier patterns together, and communities cultivating food culture as a shared practice.

Easymeals adapts to context, body, culture, budget, time, and skill rather than asking people to adapt to a single way of eating.
{% endtab %}
{% endtabs %}

## **Challenge**

*<mark style="color:$primary;">The gap between knowing and eating well keeps getting wide.</mark>*

Information about food has never been more abundant. Diets multiply. Recipe sites scroll endlessly. Influencers, apps, and meal plans compete for attention. Yet the outcomes get worse. Diet-related disease climbs. Confusion deepens. The gap between what people know about healthy eating and what they actually do keeps widening. This is not a knowledge problem or a willpower problem. It is a structural one.

#### **Seven Barriers No One Solves Alone**

The reasons healthy eating fails are not mysterious. Years of research, real-world testing, and lived experience reveal seven interlocking barriers that the current food environment fails to address together. Each one is significant on its own. Together they form a system that makes healthy eating an unfair fight.

Most products in this space pick one barrier and build a solution around it. A recipe site addresses the knowledge gap. A meal kit addresses time scarcity. A nutrition tracker addresses awareness. Each helps with one piece while leaving the other six fully active. The result: short-term wins, long-term reversion, and the quiet conclusion that healthy eating just isn't for most people.

It is. The architecture is wrong.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Knowledge gap</strong></mark></summary>

Understanding which ingredients are genuinely healthy, how they interact nutritionally, and what constitutes a balanced meal is specialized knowledge most people lack.

Conflicting dietary information makes this worse, not better. Every year brings a new framework, a new villain ingredient, a new optimal protocol. The result is not informed choice. It is decision fatigue and quiet resignation.

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Skill barrier</strong></mark></summary>

Turning healthy ingredients into meals that taste genuinely good requires culinary skill that takes years to develop.

Without it, healthy cooking produces disappointing results. Disappointing results reinforce the belief that healthy food cannot taste good. The belief becomes the explanation for why people stop trying. The skill never develops because the practice never sustains.

</details>

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Time scarcity</strong></mark></summary>

Shopping, planning, prepping, cooking, and cleaning consume hours each week.

Busy schedules push people toward faster, less healthy alternatives. Not because they prefer them, but because the time cost of the healthy option is too high. The math does not work, so the choice is not really a choice.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Temptation and addiction</strong></mark></summary>

Ultra-processed foods are engineered for palatability, cheap, instantly accessible, and in many cases physiologically addictive.

Competing with this level of engineered convenience using traditional home cooking is an unfair fight. The competition is not between healthy and unhealthy food. It is between a person under load and an industry optimized to win that moment.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Taste expectations</strong></mark></summary>

Healthy food has a reputation for blandness. The reputation exists for a reason.

Without expert technique, quality seasoning, and practiced flavor building, home-cooked healthy meals often do taste worse than their processed alternatives. If the food does not taste good, nothing else matters. Nutritional value cannot survive a meal nobody wants to finish.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Access limitations</strong></mark></summary>

Truly healthy whole-food ingredients can be harder to find, more expensive, and less conveniently located.

In many areas, access to high-quality fresh produce and ethically sourced proteins is genuinely limited. Where access exists, the cost differential alone can disqualify the healthier choice for households operating on tight budgets.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>The restocking problem</strong></mark></summary>

Most home kitchens are not designed for efficient food storage. Fresh ingredients spoil quickly. Bulk buying is impractical in standard setups.

The result is a cycle of frequent shopping trips, half-empty fridges, expired produce, and the perpetual question: what do we even have to cook?

</details>

These barriers are interconnected. A person who has the knowledge but no time still cannot eat well. A person who has time but no access to good ingredients is stuck. A person with access and time but no cooking skill produces meals that don't taste good enough to sustain the habit. Solving one barrier in isolation fails because the other six are still active.

> #### **A successful intervention cannot be another repository of recipes. It requires a redesign of the entire food architecture.**

<figure><img src="/files/NQAEdcB6YnX8OzYhmRdq" alt=""><figcaption><p><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>The moment the system fails:</strong></mark> a fridge full of possibilities that somehow adds up to nothing.</p></figcaption></figure>

These barriers are interconnected. A person who has the knowledge but no time still cannot eat well.&#x20;

#### **Systemic Nature**

The seven barriers are not random. They cascade from structural forces operating at three interconnected levels.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Macro</strong></mark>  <sup>(Economic and Systemic)</sup></summary>

Agricultural subsidies favor commodity crops that form the backbone of processed foods. Multi-billion dollar marketing budgets create demand for these products.

Increasingly demanding work schedules create a time famine where meal planning and cooking feel like an insurmountable luxury. The economic architecture rewards convenience and penalizes care.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Meso</strong></mark>  <sup>(Community and Information Environment)</sup></summary>

The digital media landscape is saturated with unqualified influencers, conflicting dietary dogmas, and clickbait articles. Social and workplace norms often revolve around less healthy options.

The prevalence of fast food and convenience dining establishes a powerful alternative to home cooking. The cultural defaults around food make the unhealthy choice feel normal and the healthy choice feel like effort.

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Micro</strong></mark>  <sup>(Individual and Psychological)</sup></summary>

Stress and fatigue deplete the cognitive resources needed for planning and cooking. Ingrained habits and taste preferences create inertia. An all-or-nothing mindset leads to feelings of failure after a single slip-up.

A generational decline in foundational cooking skills means many people feel intimidated by fresh ingredients. The internal landscape mirrors the external one.

</details>

The result is a top-down cascade. Broad economic and agricultural policies shape the food industry's priorities. The industry designs and markets products that dictate the choices available to individuals. An individual's genuine desire to eat well is actively thwarted by an environment engineered for consumption, not wellbeing.

#### **Conclusion**

More information will not close this gap. People already know food matters. What they lack is a structure that makes the invisible visible, addresses all seven barriers together, and provides a clear path from where they are to where they want to be. Not another product solving one piece. A complete ecosystem solving the system.

That is what Easymeals is designed to provide.<br>

## **Intervention**

*<mark style="color:$primary;">Not another product. A complete food ecosystem.</mark>*

Where the seven barriers form a system, the response must be a system. Easymeals is not a product solving one piece of healthy eating. It is an ecosystem solving the architecture that makes healthy eating hard in the first place. Four operational components, connected by a single membership, designed together from the ground up.

#### **Core Strategic Intent**

Make healthy eating the path of least resistance, by design rather than by willpower. Through structural redesign of the entire relationship between a person and their food, from how meals are composed to how skills are learned to how communities of practice form around food. The seven barriers are not addressed individually. They dissolve in an environment built differently from the start.

#### **Guiding Principles**

Three principles hold the entire architecture together. They emerged from seven years of food R\&D and were validated in real-world systems before any platform existed. Everything Easymeals builds is shaped by them.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Food is living and dynamic</strong></mark></summary>

Meals should not be rigid formulas. They should be flexible, adaptive, and responsive to what's available, what's in season, what the body needs, and what sounds good today.

This led to the development of Flexmeals: meal templates designed from the start for substitution and personalization rather than strict reproduction. A Flexmeal is not a recipe with options. It is a structure where every component has been validated for substitution within its functional category, so a swap preserves the meal's nutritional balance, flavor profile, and cooking process.

The shift from rigid recipe to living artifact changes what a meal can do. It adapts to the person rather than asking the person to adapt to it.

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Personalized nutrition is the only honest approach</strong></mark></summary>

There is no universal right way to eat. Needs, preferences, lifestyles, bodies, cultures, and contexts vary enormously. Certain principles stay true in most instances, but how they are applied should differ from person to person.

Any system that prescribes a single path is ignoring the complexity of real life. Easymeals is built to adapt to individual variables: dietary requirements, health conditions, allergies, taste preferences, cultural context, budget, available time, cooking skill level, household size, and personal goals. This adaptation is not a filter applied on top of a universal meal library. It shapes how meals are composed, how components are suggested, and how the learning pathway unfolds.

Two people using Easymeals may have very different experiences, both optimized for their context.

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Experience matters as much as outcome</strong></mark></summary>

Most approaches to healthy eating focus on what you eat. Easymeals redesigns how the entire cycle feels: planning, shopping, storing, prepping, cooking, eating, cleaning.

If any phase of that cycle is stressful, the habit breaks. Every phase must be designed for the experience it creates, not just the outcome it produces. A meal that tastes amazing but takes three hours to make and leaves a destroyed kitchen does not survive a Tuesday evening. A planning system that requires twenty minutes and a spreadsheet does not survive a busy week.

The work is to make every phase feel calm, capable, and worth returning to.

</details>

#### **Easymeals Ecosystem**

Most healthy eating products solve one piece of the puzzle. A recipe site. A meal planner. A tracking app. Easymeals solves the system. Four operational components, each addressing a different layer of how food actually works in a person's life, connected by a single membership that holds them together as one experience.

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Easymeals.com</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">Open front door</mark></summary>

The public face of the ecosystem. Mostly free, with some highly curated paid offerings. Eight content categories spanning meals, learning, stories, guides, events, gallery, and a rigorously curated marketplace. Designed to provide real value without requiring membership, while creating natural pathways for those who want to go deeper.

</details>

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Easymeals Pass</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">Single unifided membership</mark></summary>

No tiers. No plans. No upsells. One pass unlocks everything: extended tools and resources, member pricing on curated offerings, full access to School of Food, and entry into FoodKit. The membrane that connects every component into a coherent whole.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>School of Food</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">Living practice world</mark></summary>

Where content becomes capacity. Six domains of food experience, five stages of depth, quests that build skills through doing, alone or alongside others. School of Food is its own Open Food Lab project, with Easymeals as the first context where it rolls out as the integrated practice layer of membership.

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>FoodKit</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">Daily companion</mark></summary>

Practical utility for the kitchen, the supermarket, the Tuesday evening with a delayed train and an empty fridge. Tools, guides, resources, references, all designed to support the rhythms of daily food life and the journey through School of Food.

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/4vBn50CaMnmRYDeBifg8" alt="" width="375"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

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<summary><mark style="color:$info;"><strong>How the components connect</strong></mark></summary>

The four components are designed as one experience, not four products bundled together. A meal discovered on easymeals.com links to relevant quests in School of Food and tools in FoodKit. A skill practiced in School of Food carries forward into the meals a member chooses and the way they navigate their kitchen. FoodKit operates as the bridge between the social practice of School of Food and the solitary rhythms of daily food life.

The Easymeals Pass is what holds this together. Without the membership, easymeals.com remains generous and useful but the deeper environments stay closed. With the membership, the four components become one continuous experience that adapts to how a member moves through their food life.

This is the architectural commitment. Not a content site with optional add-ons. An ecosystem where every component depends on and reinforces the others.

</details>

**Eight Categories on Easymeals.com**

The open front door breaks into eight interconnected content categories. Each can be enjoyed on its own. Pathways between them create a richer experience.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Discover</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">The Default landing experience</mark></summary>

A curated, personalized feed surfacing the best from every category based on preferences, what's in season, and what a member has been exploring. The front door is never the same twice.

</details>

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Meals</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">Living artifacts, not recipes</mark></summary>

Each meal is crafted with care: a memorable name, a creative hero image, ingredients presented visually with clear images for every component, layered nutritional information, tools specified with substitution options, and a cooking experience designed as an engaging step-by-step path that integrates subtle learning.&#x20;

Most meals are Flexmeals, designed for substitution from the start. There are no separate vegetarian meals. Every meal provides options for different dietary approaches within the same template.

{% hint style="info" %}

#### What makes a Flexmeal different

Traditional recipes are rigid. Swap an ingredient and you're on your own. Flexmeals are engineered for substitution from the start.

Components within each meal are categorized by function: protein source, grain base, vegetable mix, flavor system. The system ensures any swap within a functional category preserves the meal's nutritional balance, flavor profile, and cooking process. This is not "you can replace chicken with tofu." It is a system where every permutation has been tested and validated.

Flexmeals are organized into practical sub-categories: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks, Sweets, Drinks, and Vitamins. Beyond these, situational meals are designed for specific contexts: a Friday dinner, a Saturday evening with friends, a quick workday lunch.

The meal library is deliberately curated rather than massive. Each meal earns its place through versatility, flavor, and the ability to adapt to many different lives. Each meal is also living. Community feedback, seasonal availability, and nutritional research feed into ongoing updates. A meal published today may evolve next quarter based on what the community discovers about it.
{% endhint %}

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Quests</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">Learning through play</mark></summary>

Micro-learning games where food skills, methods, and meals are learned through doing. Quests adapt to skill level and connect to School of Food's six domains, providing both linear and non-linear exploration pathways. Food literacy grows through practice, not lectures.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Stories</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">Voices from across the food world</mark></summary>

First-person narratives from community members, growers, chefs, restaurants, and food innovators. Grounded in lived reality. Inspiration, awareness, learning, and connection at once.

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Guides</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">Structured deeper learning</mark></summary>

For when you want to genuinely understand something: a cooking technique, a nutritional concept, a kitchen workflow, a food tradition. Beyond the quest format.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Gallery</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">Inspiration withouth the scroll trap</mark></summary>

Short-form food content designed to spark curiosity and provide value, not to hold attention. Pathways toward learning rather than passive consumption.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Events</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">In-person and digital food experiences</mark></summary>

Workshops, community cooking sessions, producer visits, seasonal gatherings. Bridges between digital practice and embodied experience.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Essentials</strong></mark><br><mark style="color:$info;">Rigorously curated marketplace</mark></summary>

Not a product catalog. A trusted shortlist. One or two options per category, selected on quality, sustainability, value, and independence. Less choice, better choices.

{% hint style="info" %}

#### **Essentials curation principles**

Every product available through Essentials meets a defined set of criteria before it can be listed.

**Quality**\
It must be genuinely excellent at what it does. Not acceptable. Not good enough. Excellent.

**Sustainability**\
Materials, production methods, and supply chain must meet environmental standards. Durability is weighted heavily. A product that lasts a decade is more sustainable than a green product that breaks in two years.

**Value**\
Price must be proportional to quality and longevity. Essentials does not feature luxury items for the sake of premium positioning. It features the best practical choice at a reasonable price.

**Independence**\
Product selection is editorially independent. Easymeals receives no kickbacks from the majority of listed products. Commercial partnerships, where they exist, are disclosed. Selection criteria remain the same regardless of affiliation.

**Restraint.** The number of options per category is deliberately limited. Adding a new product is a decision to replace an existing one, not to expand the catalog. Less choice, better choices.
{% endhint %}

</details>

**Frameworks Powering Easymeals**

Two frameworks underpin everything Easymeals does. Both developed within Open Food Lab. Both available as standalone resources for use beyond the Easymeals context.

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<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>IFA/CMS Framework</strong></mark></summary>

<mark style="color:$primary;">**Integrated Food Architecture**</mark>**&#x20;(IFA)** and <mark style="color:$primary;">**Component Meal System**</mark> **(CMS)** are the structural foundation behind Easymeals' meals.

IFA is a systems-level framework for thinking about food not as recipes or products but as architecture: the full set of relationships between ingredients, meals, kitchens, supply chains, and the people who interact with them. CMS is the practical methodology built on top of IFA, breaking meals into standardized components that can be composed, substituted, and scaled.

This is what makes Flexmeals possible. It is also what enables nutritional coherence at scale, efficient production in real kitchens, and dramatic reduction in food waste. The framework was developed by Open Food Lab with Easymeals as a core contributor and proving ground.

<mark style="color:$primary;">→</mark> Learn more about [IFA and CMS](broken://pages/dG8Q1kb14n1CJ61db8VE)

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>NutritionXD</strong></mark></summary>

<mark style="color:$primary;">**NutritionXD**</mark> is a systems-based personalized nutrition framework. It treats nourishment as an outcome of how a whole life is structured, not just what a person eats.

Two core instruments hold the framework together. The Map is a deep periodic profile capturing a person's full context: physiology, lifestyle, culture, preferences, goals, constraints. The Pulse is continuous lightweight tracking that sits in daily life without demanding attention. Together they enable nutrition that adapts to a real person rather than a generic template.

NutritionXD is developed by Open Food Lab and adapted for the Easymeals context. It is what makes personalized nutrition operational rather than aspirational.

<mark style="color:$primary;">→</mark> Learn more about [NutritionXD](broken://pages/dG8Q1kb14n1CJ61db8VE)

</details>

#### **Tested in the Real World**

Before the platform existed, the philosophy was tested twice in real-world settings. Once with the most vulnerable population. Once at the highest performance level. Both engagements shaped what's being built today.<br>

<mark style="color:$primary;">**Feeding children who deserve better**</mark>

*<mark style="color:$info;">Preschool pilot, Oslo, 2022</mark>*

A one-year food service operation at a Norwegian preschool serving children aged one to five. Easymeals designed a research-based menu adapted to the specific nutritional requirements of young children, built a delivery system, and developed a food portal giving staff and parents full visibility into menus, nutritional values, and ingredient sourcing.&#x20;

The pilot proved the model works operationally and revealed that better products alone cannot overcome structural barriers in food systems. That insight directly shaped the architectural thinking behind IFA.

<mark style="color:$primary;">**Three years, four thousand meals**</mark>

*<mark style="color:$info;">Karsten Warholm food system, 2023-present</mark>*

An end-to-end personalized food system for Olympic gold medalist and 400m hurdles world record holder [Karsten Warholm](https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karsten_Warholm).&#x20;

The brief was total: build a nutritional system covering 90% of his weekday needs, optimized for elite athletic performance, with zero margin for error. Development began with a 360-degree personal assessment, produced a four-week rolling menu of 40+ meals, more than 70% organically certified, with a three-day delivery cycle.&#x20;

<div><figure><img src="/files/vPWzuKuZ493DNppcTzCx" alt=""><figcaption><p><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Production day:</strong></mark> meals being prepared, portioned, and packed for delivery. Precision and care in every container.</p></figcaption></figure> <figure><img src="/files/dU399o9KgnVgen26GKjP" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

&#x20;

> #### **The requirements of an elite athlete at the top of the world leave almost no margin for error. If the system works there, it works anywhere.**

The system has been running continuously for almost three years. Health and performance outcomes have been validated through follow-up testing.

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>What these engagements taught us</strong></mark></summary>

<mark style="color:$primary;">**The spectrum validates the principles**</mark>\
A preschool for one-to-five-year-olds and an Olympic gold medalist represent opposite ends of the nutritional spectrum. That the same core philosophy applies to both confirmed the principles are universal, not context-dependent.

<mark style="color:$primary;">**Personalization is not a feature - It is the foundation**</mark>\
The Warholm assessment revealed how much individual variation exists in nutritional needs. The preschool work revealed how different the requirements of growing children are from adults. Any system that ignores this is solving the wrong problem.

<mark style="color:$primary;">**Taste holds absolute veto power**</mark>\
Children refuse food that does not taste good, regardless of nutritional value. An elite athlete stops eating food that does not satisfy, regardless of how optimized it is. Taste is the threshold that must be cleared before anything else counts.

<mark style="color:$primary;">**A better product alone cannot overcome structural barriers**</mark>\
The preschool pilot proved the model works operationally. It also proved that without systemic change in how food is funded, governed, and prioritized, even the best solution hits a ceiling. This shaped the architectural ambition of IFA.

<mark style="color:$primary;">**Components are the architecture**</mark>\
Both systems were built on standardized, optimized units of food that could be combined flexibly. This eliminated waste, enabled rapid variation, and made production sustainable. CMS methodology emerged directly from this operational experience.

<mark style="color:$primary;">**The system must be invisible**</mark>\
Karsten does not think about the food system. He opens the container. The meal is there. The preschool children did not think about it either. The meal appeared. They ate together and enjoyed it. In both cases, the system disappeared. This is what Easymeals aims to deliver for everyone.

Both cases shaped what's being built today.

</details>

#### **Projected Impact**

The architecture changes what becomes possible. Three projected outcomes based on seven years of food R\&D and the IFA/CMS framework. Measurable data follows as Easymeals scales.

> <mark style="color:$primary;">**166 hours saved per year**</mark>\
> Based on Component Meal System reducing planning, shopping, prep, and decision time across the weekly food cycle.
>
> <mark style="color:$primary;">**50% less food waste**</mark>\
> Based on Flexmeal substitution logic and CMS storage principles eliminating the most common waste patterns in home kitchens.
>
> <mark style="color:$primary;">**$1,250 annual savings**</mark>\
> Composite estimate from reduced waste, fewer impulse purchases, and lower reliance on convenience and delivery alternatives.

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>On health outcomes</strong></mark></summary>

Health is the reason this ecosystem exists. Every architectural choice points toward better physical, metabolic, and cognitive outcomes for the people who use it. But health is not a metric we will project numbers on, because the honest answer is that health outcomes depend on consistency over years, individual context, and variables far beyond what any single product can control.

What the architecture is designed to support: sustained access to nutritionally coherent meals, reduced reliance on ultra-processed alternatives, food choices adapted to individual context rather than generic templates, and the kind of daily food rhythms that compound into long-term wellbeing.

Real health data comes from real people using Easymeals over real time. As the ecosystem scales and members opt into longitudinal tracking through the Pulse instrument, the picture becomes measurable. Until then, the case for health is the architecture itself.

</details>

These are projections. As Easymeals scales, the data follows.

## **Evolution**

*<mark style="color:$primary;">From kitchen table frustration to operating ecosystem.</mark>*

Easymeals has been in active development since 2019. What started as a deck of recipe cards evolved through years of food product R\&D, two real-world food systems, and a complete food architecture framework into the ecosystem being built today. The timeline below shows the major beats of that journey.

{% stepper %}
{% step %}

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**2019**</mark>**&#x20;· The Spark**

What started as kitchen table frustration turned into a multi-year inquiry. The first attempt looked like a deck of recipe cards: slim, resistant plastic, designed to survive kitchen conditions. Each card distilled a meal into its essentials. Several collections were designed, produced, and printed. The cards worked as objects but revealed a much bigger problem.

<figure><img src="/files/CmZBgouY2Ekd5g8jTGoN" alt="" width="375"><figcaption><p><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Spaghetti Bolognese, 2019.</strong></mark> One of the first printed prototypes.<br>The cards solved for clarity but not for the system underneath.</p></figcaption></figure>

The cards solved the cooking step but did nothing about the five hours of friction that preceded it. Decision fatigue, shopping, ingredients that were not in the fridge, the mismatch between what the card required and what the household actually needed that week. They were a better answer to the wrong question.

That realization was the real starting point. The cards did not fail. They revealed the shape of a much larger problem.<br>
{% endstep %}

{% step %}

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**2019 - 2022**</mark>**&#x20;· Research and R\&D**

The question shifted from "how do we make cooking instructions clearer" to "why is healthy eating so hard in the first place." That question led out of the kitchen and into systems.

Several years of research and food product R\&D followed. Vacuum-sealed meal prototypes. Sauce bases. Frozen food cubes. Smoothie concepts. Health shots. Snack packs. Porridge formats. Each iteration tested a different hypothesis about where the leverage point might be. Each iteration revealed that no single product format could carry the full weight of the problem.

By the end of this phase, two convictions had hardened. The response had to be architectural rather than product-shaped. And the architecture had to be tested in real-world conditions before any platform could be built.

<figure><img src="/files/M2f7NlqHUD14mZ8D2v65" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="/files/aqXQcy6iIjOVDXXW4Arh" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="/files/vaXJ38fJVx85rSiJKETr" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

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#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**2023**</mark>**&#x20;· Preschool Pilot**

Easymeals designed and operated a year-long food service pilot for a preschool in Oslo, serving children aged one to five. The work began with a frustration that, on the surface, makes no sense. Norway is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Yet its school system does not provide food to children. Suboptimal nutrition results for the segment of the population where nutrition matters most.

The team partnered with a private preschool, developed a research-based menu adapted to the specific nutritional requirements of young children, and built a delivery system with a food portal that gave staff and parents full visibility. The pilot ran for a full year. By every qualitative measure, the service was a clear improvement over the previous provider.

The economics told a harder story. The per-meal food budget at Norwegian preschools could not sustain the quality level the team believed was necessary for growing children. The pilot proved the model works operationally. It also revealed that a better product alone cannot overcome structural barriers in the food system. That insight directly shaped the architectural thinking behind IFA.

> #### **We didn't end the pilot because it failed. We ended it because the structural conditions wouldn't allow the quality these children deserve. The societal context wasn't ready.**

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#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**2023**</mark>**&#x20;· Warholm Food System**

A very different engagement began later that year. Easymeals was approached to design a complete, end-to-end food system for Karsten Warholm, the 400m hurdles Olympic gold medalist and current world record holder. The brief was total. Build a nutritional system covering 90% of his weekday needs, optimized for elite athletic performance, with zero margin for error.

Development took several months and began with a 360-degree personal nutrition assessment. Biometric testing, interviews with Karsten and his team, consultations with his doctors. The team designed a four-week rolling menu of more than 40 different meals. Every ingredient and meal composition was optimized for his physiology, lifestyle, preferences, and performance requirements. More than 70% of all ingredients are organically certified.

The system has been running continuously for almost three years. More than 4000 meals delivered. The operational lessons shaped everything that came after. Components as architecture. The system as invisible. Taste as veto power.

<div><figure><img src="/files/AeHAQ9H0yxJlBgcO7FvC" alt=""><figcaption><p><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>A personalized food portal</strong></mark> was built where the entire menu,<br>meal details, and historical nutritional data can be accessed<br>through an individual Easymeals ID.</p></figcaption></figure> <figure><img src="/files/8nvH1knj0A5JEyY6qgzj" alt=""><figcaption><p><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Karsten Warholm won silver in the 400m hurdles at the 2024 Paris Olympics</strong></mark>, six tenths behind Rai Benjamin's 46.46. Three years earlier in Tokyo, the roles were reversed, Warholm claimed gold in a <a href="https://youtu.be/n48P9pSIQKs?si=P8gV2v9I4XvekQ72&#x26;t=130">world record 45.94</a>, Benjamin silver.</p></figcaption></figure></div>
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#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**2024**</mark>**&#x20;· IFA and CMS**

Component Based Cooking research initiated and integrated into Open Food Lab's Integrated Food Architecture framework. IFA v1.0 and v2.0 developed. Component Meal System methodology documented. Flexmeal algorithm designed and tested.

This was the year the architectural thinking became formal. What had emerged from the preschool pilot and the Warholm system as operational instinct became a documented framework that could scale beyond any single engagement. The core insight: meals are not the unit of food architecture. Components are. And once components become the unit, everything downstream changes.

Brand identity for Easymeals was also established this year. The platform began moving from concept toward construction.

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#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**2025**</mark>**&#x20;· Platform Build**

Platform UX and UI designed and built. Eight-category content architecture defined. Meal library developed with 40+ Flexmeals. Quest system designed in coordination with School of Food. Community platform strategy developed. Essentials marketplace curation framework established.

<figure><img src="/files/3mKBTb5dzS7CoC88wd6G" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

The work this year was about translation. Seven years of R\&D, two real-world food systems, and the IFA/CMS framework had to become an experience a person could actually use on their phone or laptop. Beta preparation underway by year end.

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#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**2026**</mark>**&#x20;· Beta and School of Food Integration**

Beta release scheduled for 2026. The integration of School of Food as the practice world inside Easymeals membership was confirmed during this period, marking the first context where School of Food rolls out at scale.

Easymeals Pass architecture finalized as a single unified membership with no tiers, no plans, no upsells. FoodKit positioned as the daily companion at foodkit.easymeals.com. The four-component ecosystem came into focus as the operational reality of what Easymeals deliver

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#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Current**</mark>**&#x20;· Living and Evolving**

Easymeals is in active development moving toward beta. The architecture is built. The principles are validated. The ecosystem is taking shape in operational form.

What comes next is the work of translating seven years of research and two real-world systems into an experience that can serve thousands and eventually millions of people, while preserving the architectural integrity that makes the difference. New partnerships. Expanded meal library. Deeper integration with School of Food and FoodKit. Members shaping the ecosystem through their lived practice.

> #### **A complete food ecosystem, built to serve the whole human relationship with food.**

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## **Resources**

The reading, viewing, and reference material that informed Easymeals' development and continues to shape its evolution. These resources are curated, not exhaustive. Each entry earns its place by genuinely contributing to the work.

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Books</strong></mark></summary>

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**In Defense of Food**</mark>

Michael Pollan. The foundational text on why modern food has lost its way and what eating well actually means. Informed the philosophical ground beneath everything Easymeals does.

→ [Penguin Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/96903/in-defense-of-food-by-michael-pollan/)

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Atomic Habits**</mark>

James Clear. The clearest articulation of how habits actually form and persist. Behavioral architecture beneath the experience-as-much-as-outcome principle and the path of least resistance design philosophy.

→ [jamesclear.com](https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits)

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Ultra-Processed People**</mark>

Chris van Tulleken. The book that reframed public conversation around food and health by exposing how ultra-processed food is engineered to behave as an addictive substance, not a nutritional choice. Informed the Temptation and Addiction barrier and the structural framing of what Easymeals exists to counter.

→ [Penguin Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717971/ultra-processed-people-by-chris-van-tulleken/)

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Food for Life**</mark>

Tim Spector. The definitive case for personalized nutrition grounded in gut microbiome science. Informed why no single diet works for everyone and shaped Easymeals' architectural commitment to personalization as foundation, not feature.

→ [Penguin](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/435986/food-for-life-by-spector-tim/9781529919660)

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Cooked**</mark>

Michael Pollan. A meditation on cooking as a fundamental human practice and what is lost when we stop. Informed the Skill barrier framing and the role of cooking in School of Food's six domains.

→ [michaelpollan.com](https://michaelpollan.com/books/cooked/)

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**The Way We Eat Now**</mark>

Bee Wilson. A wide-angle look at how the modern food system reshaped what and how humans eat globally. Informed the Macro-level analysis in the systemic framing of the problem.

→ [beewilson.com](https://www.beewilson.com/books)

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Frameworks</strong></mark></summary>

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**IFA/CMS Framework**</mark>

Open Food Lab. Integrated Food Architecture and Component Meal System. The structural foundation behind every Flexmeal. What makes substitution coherent, nutritional balance scalable, and food waste dramatically reducible.

→ IFA/CMS in Frameworks

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**NutritionXD**</mark>

Open Food Lab. Systems-based personalized nutrition framework. Map and Pulse instruments for adaptive nutrition that fits real life rather than generic templates. What makes personalized nutrition operational rather than aspirational.

→ NutritionXD page

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Videos and Documentaries</strong></mark></summary>

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones**</mark>

*Netflix · Dan Buettner.* Four-part series exploring how communities with the highest concentrations of centenarians actually eat, move, and live. Reinforces the principle that healthy eating is structural rather than individual, shaped by environment and culture more than willpower.

→ [Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/title/81214929)

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment**</mark>

*Netflix.* Stanford-led twin study examining how dietary changes affect identical twins over eight weeks. Useful for the precision of dietary impact and the complexity of what "right" eating means, while reinforcing the necessity of personalization. Approach with awareness of the documentary's framing biases.

→ [Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/title/81133260)

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Salt Fat Acid Heat**</mark>

*Netflix · Samin Nosrat.* Four-episode exploration of the elemental forces that make food taste good. Foundational reference for taste as veto power and for the principle that healthy food must clear the taste threshold before anything else counts.

→ [Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/title/80198721)

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Papers and Articles</strong></mark></summary>

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Ultra-processed foods, diet quality, and health: an overview**</mark>

The foundational research framing UPF as a category distinct from processed food, and the public health case for treating it as such. Underpins the Temptation and Addiction barrier.

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**The Diet Myth: personalized nutrition and the microbiome**</mark>

Tim Spector. Research foundations for why individual variation in food response is the rule, not the exception. Underpins the Personalized nutrition is the only honest approach principle.

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Adherence and behavior change in dietary interventions**</mark>

Research on why diet plans fail under real-life stress and what predicts sustained behavior change. Underpins the path of least resistance design philosophy and the structural framing of barriers.

#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Component-based meal architecture**</mark>

Open Food Lab. Internal documentation of the IFA/CMS framework's foundational research. Detailed methodology behind Flexmeals and the technical case for replacing recipes with components.

→ \[IFA/CMS in Frameworks]

</details>

## **Team & Partners**

Easymeals is developed within Open Food Lab as one of its core projects. The work spans seven years of food product R\&D, two real-world food systems, and an ecosystem build that brings together design, culinary expertise, and operational partnership across the Lumeon network.

#### **Team**

<table data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-cover data-type="image">Cover image</th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><h4><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Kim Sellberg</strong></mark></h4></td><td><em><mark style="color:$info;"><strong>Project Lead &#x26; Designer</strong></mark></em></td><td>Designer and engineer exploring complexity across diverse domains. Responsible for the systems architecture, platform design, and overall project direction.</td><td></td><td><i class="fa-at" style="color:$info;">:at:</i> <a href="mailto:kim@easymeals.com">kim@easymeals.com</a></td><td><i class="fa-square-linkedin" style="color:$info;">:square-linkedin:</i> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-sellberg-5984511b/">Linkedin</a></td><td><a href="/files/jSM2zqvHQljfagRKrNzU">/files/jSM2zqvHQljfagRKrNzU</a></td><td></td></tr><tr><td><h4><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Johan Erkkilä</strong></mark></h4></td><td><em><mark style="color:$info;"><strong>Culinary Lead</strong></mark></em></td><td>Chef and food innovator bridging gastronomy and health. Responsible for meal development, flavor systems, and the culinary integrity of everything Easymeals produces.</td><td></td><td><i class="fa-at" style="color:$info;">:at:</i> <a href="mailto:johan@easymeals.com">johan@easymeals.com</a></td><td><i class="fa-square-linkedin" style="color:$info;">:square-linkedin:</i> <a href="https://no.linkedin.com/in/johan-erkkil%C3%A4-a2b77734">Linkedin</a></td><td><a href="/files/eCPVIlZTq4iCl5y2dkmU">/files/eCPVIlZTq4iCl5y2dkmU</a></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

#### **Partners**

<table data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-cover data-type="image">Cover image</th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><h4><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Lumeon</strong></mark></h4></td><td><em><mark style="color:$info;"><strong>Project Incubator &#x26; Funder</strong></mark></em></td><td>Polymathic innovation studio based in Norway.</td><td></td><td><i class="fa-globe-pointer" style="color:$info;">:globe-pointer:</i> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/lumeon-polylab">lumeon.dev</a></td><td><i class="fa-at" style="color:$info;">:at:</i> <a href="mailto:create@lumeon.dev">create@lumeon.dev</a></td><td><i class="fa-square-linkedin" style="color:$info;">:square-linkedin:</i> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/lumeon-polylab">Linkedin</a></td><td><a href="/files/xOdFaey2r6VmAoMRmN7t">/files/xOdFaey2r6VmAoMRmN7t</a></td><td></td></tr><tr><td><h4><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Open Food Lab</strong></mark></h4></td><td><em><mark style="color:$info;"><strong>A lab in the Lumeon Ecosystem</strong></mark></em></td><td>The lab within which Easymeals is developed, alongside sibling projects including School of Food, Plan Cook Eat, Quickbite, Arctic Fire, Happy Peppers, and Oatchi.</td><td></td><td><i class="fa-globe-pointer" style="color:$info;">:globe-pointer:</i> <a href="https://www.openfoodlab.org">openfoodlab.org</a></td><td><i class="fa-at" style="color:$info;">:at:</i> <a href="mailto:hello@openfoodlab.org">hello@openfoodlab.org</a></td><td><i class="fa-square-linkedin" style="color:$info;">:square-linkedin:</i> Linkedin</td><td><a href="/files/YwD7honZ81LbD8DMMIKt">/files/YwD7honZ81LbD8DMMIKt</a></td><td></td></tr><tr><td><h4><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Fantastisk Helse</strong></mark></h4></td><td><em><mark style="color:$info;"><strong>Funder</strong></mark></em></td><td>Supporting the development of health-focused food innovation.</td><td></td><td><i class="fa-globe-pointer" style="color:$info;">:globe-pointer:</i> <a href="https://www.fantastiskhelse.no/">fantastiskhelse.no</a></td><td><i class="fa-at" style="color:$info;">:at:</i> <a href="mailto:hei@fantastiskhelse.no">hei@fantastiskhelse.no</a></td><td></td><td><a href="/files/KP8xlC70YeI9gW2ntg46">/files/KP8xlC70YeI9gW2ntg46</a></td><td></td></tr><tr><td><h4><mark style="color:$primary;"><strong>Treats</strong></mark></h4></td><td><em><mark style="color:$info;"><strong>Production Partner</strong></mark></em></td><td>Providing kitchen facility and food production capabilities for real-world food system operations.</td><td></td><td><i class="fa-globe-pointer" style="color:$info;">:globe-pointer:</i> <a href="https://www.treats.no/">treats.no</a></td><td><i class="fa-at" style="color:$info;">:at:</i> <a href="mailto:post@treats.no">post@treats.no</a></td><td></td><td><a href="/files/vWIwj6jzhyeNPV9Emwpr">/files/vWIwj6jzhyeNPV9Emwpr</a></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

#### **Contributors**

Easymeals is shaped by a growing community of contributors. As the platform moves toward beta and beyond, this section will spotlight individuals and organizations whose feedback, testing, expertise, and support have helped shape what's being built.

Beta testers, recipe contributors, nutrition advisors, and community members who engage with the platform's development will be recognized here.

→ <mark style="color:$primary;">Interested in contributing?</mark> See the Engage section below.

## **Engage**

Easymeals is moving toward beta release. The architecture is built. The principles are validated. What comes next is shaped by the people who use it, contribute to it, and partner around it.

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#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Get the Easymeals Pass**</mark>

Single unified membership unlocking the full ecosystem. No tiers, no plans, no upsells. Sign up to be notified when membership opens and to receive updates as Easymeals scales.

<a href="https://www.easymeals.com/" class="button secondary">→ easymeals.com</a>

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#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Build with us**</mark>

Are you a creator, expert, or aligned brand working on food, health, or community? Easymeals partners with chefs, nutritionists, growers, makers, and organizations whose work strengthens the ecosystem.&#x20;

If your work could find a home here, we'd like to hear from you.

<a href="mailto:hello@easymeals.com" class="button secondary">→ Contact <partners@easymeals.com></a>
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#### <mark style="color:$primary;">**Share what you learn**</mark>

If you put any of Easymeals' principles into practice and discover something worth sharing, an insight, a tested adaptation, a better way to explain something, we'd like to hear about it.&#x20;

Community experience shapes future development.

<a href="mailto:hello@easymeals.com" class="button secondary">→ <hello@easymeals.com></a>

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---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
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```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.