A very serious food theory

It is all about the starch.

The Cube Rule classifies food by where its structural starch sits. Bread underneath? Toast. Two separate bread layers? Sandwich. A connected bun on three sides? That hot dog is a taco.

This app is an independent interpretation of the original Cube Rule, created by @Phosphatide and presented by Ryan at cuberule.com. The full guide has nine categories, including salad, cake, and nachos.

A ruling, with room for interpretation.

Jev, TypeSafe AI’s decision model, interprets your food description. The app maps its judgment about starch arrangement to a category and a written explanation. When several arrangements are plausible, we show the leading categories and their probabilities. Adding preparation details is optional unless the model has too little information to offer a useful match. A name alone means the usual preparation; your description takes priority.

The original rule leaves rice open to interpretation. Here, compact rice can form a base or wrapper, while loose rice mixed with other ingredients counts as separate starch pieces. Three or more starch layers count as cake; two opposing layers count as sandwich. Plates, bowls, cheese, lettuce, and meat do not count as starch walls.

Food for thought, not food science.

These are playful structural categories, not nutritional or dietary advice. The explanation describes the selected rule, not hidden reasoning from the model. “Likely” means the model is less settled on one arrangement; it is not a measured accuracy percentage.

Food descriptions are sent to TypeSafe to obtain a verdict. Results may be cached for 24 hours. No account is needed, and the app does not keep a personal search history. Submitted food and preparation details appear in the URL and may remain in your browser history or hosting access logs. Share links look up that same input again, using the cache when available; they are not permanent snapshots of a ruling.