I rarely share my work these days anymore, but figured I'd share out my latest data post because I think it's particularly fun gourmetdata.substack.com/p/lets-use-d...

A subtle data problem I keep running into isn’t bad data; it’s categories. Categories feel authoritative because they come from somewhere upstream, but it's important to remember that data is always recorded from somewhere, and human context matters

Which nutrients do you get from a regular cucumber? When you break down cucumber into its nutrients, you get this chart as a result. It shows how much of our daily recommended value is met for each vitamin everytime we eat a cucumber. You can see vitamin K's presence pretty easily

Gentle reminder that pivoting is part of the job of a data analyst. A common mistake I make is assuming the data will just… cooperate. Sometimes it does. But sometimes the data is just not good for answering your question. Whether that means I find a new dataset or asking a new question, I pivot

alarming trend aside, this is such an effective way to convey this information. not only engaging, but does a decent job of compressing a huge amount of information (daily temps) to a single object (the curves)

According to other USDA FoodData database, cucumbers are 95% water. I represented it as a sankey because...well, because sankeys are cool

We at the JA team wish you all a very happy new year. We are excited to continue our work doing what we do best: building a more data-forward society. We have big things coming up!

Look at how wicked this pictorial map is! Zoom in I personally am mixed on illustration in maps; it helps make finding important info easier (eg Statue of Liberty for NY) but I can't help but get distracted when I'm looking at them. Either way, this beast is called 'The Geologic Time Spiral'

When you do pretty much anything on the internet, you send a request through the internet to a remote data center. Roughly 80–90% of global internet traffic passes through data centers at some stage. Still, imagining that 10% of power demand being for data centers is bonkers

What determines the cost of your internet? Terrain: harsher environments means its harder/costlier to build Density: the more dense, the more users can share the bill Tech Infrastructure: fewer cables/towers mean longer, pricier data routes Competition: more options usually means cheaper costs

A look at all the months the US has had a recession. Purple are recessions, blue are growth. What I like most about this graph is the clear change in trends. whether it was because the us's economy got stronger, or if the measurement got more gray...

This chart looks at ingredients from over 100k recipes, and lists them out in order of popularity. Oils, salt, and pepper were taken out. Not surprised to see onions/garlic in the top 5, but I think butter's/egg's popularities are cuz this probably lists out baking recipes too

This chart is one of my favorites of all time, but it takes time to interpret. It's from a Bloomberg article looking at how the world's diets have changed over time. TLDR is that our food diversity has decreased. This chart looks at three specific examples in China, South Korea, and the Maldives.

Such an interesting piece from Our World in Data - most food is transported by boat. I had always assumed that transport was a big part of the food system's carbon footprint, but apparently its only like 5% of emissions

the ultimate goal is to create a pokédex; something digital that can help people understand the world around them. idk what everyone else wants to do, but that's my goal

feels like a bunch of people are already in the matrix. everyone has their content ecosystem to the point that they have different realities

creating a tool that lets you customize charts quickly been helpful for me personally, but that's cuz i love a well-designed chart. hoping to share it more widely soon

building out the foundation of a youtube video analyzer, trying to do some basic NLP (it's mostly useless) happy with the basics and gonna iterate on the design, but i must admit this project is a great speedrun on many things backend-related

now that code is easy to create, some muscles that seem important: - understanding what people need - fun interaction design - backend scaffolding - speed

one thing that's underrated is how fun it is to use your own product, and how annoying it is when it doesn't pass the vibe check

my current side project is a food scanner, and thinking of your market advantage is an interesting thought exercise. my current approach is focusing on the visuals

in the spirit of education, here's a quick thread on how i built a basic nutrition classifier in python it helped me identify foods with a high enough protein-to-fat ratio for my diet.

my current jam is gamifying experiences, and I've been thinking up quick ideas to code here's a currency converter for my visual folks out there

ever get confused about the different crypto coins? so do I, so I made this chart that compares the market caps and daily transactions of a few ecosystems. this was made with Feb 1 data it's fun to see how much this looks like a solar system, and how each ecosystem has their own behaviors

something like 10 - 15% of earth is used to feed humans right now, and most of that is for livestock. heres a graph funny thing is if u think about it, there's an inverse relationship between animal welfare and enviro impacts, eg free range/cage free options require more land god's funny

visualizing diff social media sites; size of circle equals revenue, number of particles equals MAU (these are estimates from ~2024) might write on this but my tldr thoughts - tiktok is growing crazy rn and has hella space to grow revenue - meta's market reach is underrated

looking at some maps with Iran, and at least with this study, there is a preference for diving information by geography. kind of like a choropleth, but not quite... this is a map of rural houses (basically museums) by province

the US uses more than twice as much fertilizer as the rest of the world Synthetic fertilizers, especially those with nitrogen, can leach into water bodies, causing nitrate poisoning, which has been link to thyroid diseases and cancers Why are we still using so much of it?

flow maps are so good; theyre like the map version of a sankey diagram. great way to build visual interest and make reading more participative an example from 1930s Hungary, showing the supply and distribution of goods along the railway lines

graph from greek design firm Aspioti-ELKA, made during ww2. it's about the loss in auto supply (red cars were destroyed, yellow cars needed repairs) it looks pretty, but it makes me think about the purpose of illustration in design. is this pretty enough to be better than a bar graph? ...prob yes

social media consistency is annoying when you're trying to build

I did my best 'Salt Fat Acid Heat' impression and drew this chart that explains how to make pizza all in all, I think I hit all the main points. i didn't want to add too much clutter, but i'm especially digging the little arrows at the bottom of each step 👨🏿‍🎨

the Japanese have been using charts since the 1800s to aid in market trading, but during the Meiji period (1868-1912), the govt began adopting Western styles. the Tokyo Shisei Zuhyo, created by the Tokyo City government, is one of the more quintessential examples of this fusion

idk how accurate this data is - in fact, i'm sure it's not...like at all - but I am a fan of the design of the data. fun way to make something engaging

my attempt at simulating a mold colony. can you tell i was tripping when i made this

The New York Times interviewed about 2000 Americans and 240 nutritionists about which foods they thought were healthy.

I coded a graph that shows how some vegetables have become less nutritious since the 50s

Radar charts are one of my personal favorite charts to include anywhere, and I remember trying out a few with apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes. The charts tell a story as you scroll...grapes and bananas look a lot less favorable when factoring sugar content.

love the mix of illustration and data viz in plant root maps. Idk there effectiveness, but they put the average bar chart to shame.

This series of data graphics by the Ministry of Justice in Turkey were made in the 1920s, and they're some of the best examples of data design I've seen. i love the shapes...you don't see as many rounded forms in western data viz

Consumer Reports tested many household items to find how prevalent microplastics are. i graphed them technically the EPA says the danger levels of microplastics are in the 1m - 10million nanograms range for most of us, so not a huge danger. but it still makes me feel uneasy

a while back, I was working on a dataset of a bunch of Indian recipes and which state they came from I divided that data by which were vegetarian (red) and which were not (blue), and truly I don't think I realized just how vegetarian some Indian states are

I created this 'experimental' graphic to illustrate how prevalent clinical depression in. according to Our World in Data, an estimated 1/3 of women and 1/5 of men will battle a major depressive episode once before their 65. idk how successful it is, but i guess data can only go so far...

Who are the pushers and movers behind the food zeitgeist? Who's creating food culture? t's a hard question to answer, but I tried my best with a diagram, and since everything is everything, a venn diagram seemed appropriate. I'm sure I'm still missing some things though

Light-roasted coffee smells different than dark-roasted coffee This is because of science, of course. Specifically, chemistry. I feel like I could smell the difference between light and dark roasted coffee, but it was hard to explain, and visualizing it makes it easier to talk about

I've been focusing on food data as a content niche and something I didn't know...produce causes so much food loss? here's some of the foods with the highest rates of loss in 2009 (code included). To be fair, for juice, lots of the 'loss' gets composted or fed to livestock

I’m convinced my eventual magnum opus will be a collection of food data visualizations because I love shit like this i present to you: a 2D matrix linking ingredient usage to cuisines

Gabby Merite and I are doing a newsletter! We're calling it Effect+Affect. You can sign up at effaff.com The idea: We think 📊 data design research is super cool. We use it in our own design work. But academic papers are Zzz and intimidating. So we're attempting to translate our favorites into...

I eat a decent amount of salmon, but I was surprised to learn that there are actually 7 different types of salmon. That led me down a rabbit hole of making a stat chart for each type of salmon. hell yea #dataviz

this design is absolutely genius