The Bites Eclectic: Critique-Based Conversational Recommendation for Diversity-Focused Meal Planning.

Diet diversification has been shown both to improve nutritional health outcomes and to promote greater enjoyment in food consumption. CBR has a rich history in direct recommendation of recipes and meal planning, as well as conversational exploration of the possibilities for new food items. But more limited attention has been given to incorporating diversity outcomes as a primary factor in conversational critique for exploration. Critiquing as a method of feedback has proven effective for conversational interactions, and diversifying recommended items during exploration can help users broaden their food options, which critiquing alone may not achieve. And all of these aspects together are important elements for recommender applications in the food domain. In this paper, we introduce DiversityBite, a novel CBR approach that brings together critique and diversity to support conversational recommendation in the recipe domain. Our initial user study evaluation shows that DiversityBite is effective in promoting meal plan diversity.