[Data-modeling] Products with ingredients

[Ed Laurent]

Possibly surprising, but I would suggest keeping it as a simple ordered list
of ingredients. Order should be indexed if possible because it is
semantically important - implies relative amounts.

Use "Milled corn" instead of "Corn", and "sodium lauryl sulfate (from
coconut oil)". "Processed ingredient" could be a separate type down the road
if anyone wants to take it on.

"Strawberry extract", "Banana extract", and "Natural flavors" should work.

My 2 cents,
-Ed


On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 6:10 PM, Jeff Prucher <jeff at metaweb.com> wrote:

> I've been working on a model for Products With Ingredients (catchy name,
> eh?) over on sandbox:
> <https://www.sandbox-freebase.com/view/business/product_with_ingredients>
>
> It's pretty minimal, with two types: Product and Ingredient. The "product
> with ingredients" type can be used both with a consumer product (<
> https://www.sandbox-freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000c461acb>)
> or with a brand or product line (<
> https://www.sandbox-freebase.com/view/en/corn_flakes>), depending on where
> the ingredients make the most sense (i.e., all packages of Corn Flakes have
> the same ingredients, so putting the type at the Brand level makes the most
> sense).
>
> There are two things I'm seeing with my example data that don't quite work
> in the model, though, and I'm not quite sure what the best way to resolve
> them is. One is the Corn Flakes ingredient "Milled corn". Should the
> Ingredient topic be "Milled Corn", should it just be "Corn", or do we need a
> CVT to allow people to modify the ingredient ("Corn", "milled")?  The
> toothpaste has this ingredient also: "sodium lauryl sulfate (from coconut
> oil)", which I think is the same issue.
>
> The other one is ingredients within ingredients: the toothpaste tube lists
> this ingredient: "fruit extracts (strawberry, banana, and other natural
> flavors)". Treat as four separate ingredients, and punt on the relationship?
> I'm tempted toward this one -- if you're looking for potential allergens, or
> animal-based ingredients, or the like, you don't care whether the offending
> item is in a main ingredient or is an ingredient of an ingredient.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Jeff
>
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