Food Picker Wheel: Spin to Decide What to Eat
Spin the wheel for what to eat, from 120 foods in five lists. Untick what you can't get tonight, add your own, and spin until the group agrees.
The food picker wheel chooses one food for you and shows it with a picture when the food has one. It starts with 12 everyday foods, such as Pizza, Ramen, Tacos and Curry, and you can switch to five lists with 120 foods in all. Press Spin, click the wheel, or press the space bar.
Every food on the wheel has the same chance, 1 in 12 on the starting wheel. As a random food generator it suits dinner, lunch, breakfast or a snack, and as a what to eat wheel it ends the "I don't mind, you pick" round. A result is the name of a food and, for most of them, a picture. The tool shows no recipe, restaurant or menu.
How to spin for a food
- Choose a list. In the Entries tab, press Starter 12, All foods or one of the five lists under Food lists. On phones and tablets the same buttons sit under the Spin button.
- Press Spin, click the wheel, or press the space bar. The wheel turns for about 5 seconds. Fast (about 3 seconds) and Slow (about 7 seconds) are under Spin length in the Spin tab.
- Read the Your food card. It shows the picture and the name. Spin again draws again, Remove winner takes that food off the wheel, and Share result sends the result and a link to this page through your device's share menu, or copies them to the clipboard.
Which foods are on the wheel
The wheel opens with 12 starter foods. The other lists hold 120 different foods between them. A food that sits in two lists, such as Pizza (a dish and a fast food), is counted once, and a mix of lists shows it once. All foods are plain names. There are no restaurant brands and no diet labels.
| List | Foods | What is in it |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | 12 | Pizza, Burger, Sushi, Ramen, Tacos, Fried Chicken, Pasta, Salad, Sandwich, Curry, Noodles, Rice bowl |
| Cuisines | 24 | Kinds of cooking: Italian, Thai, Mexican, Lebanese, Ethiopian, Peruvian and more. Names only, no pictures. |
| Dishes | 44 | Pho, Biryani, Pad thai, Lasagna, Falafel, Shepherd's pie and more |
| Fast food | 18 | Fries, Chicken wings, Nachos, Onion rings, Hot dog and more |
| Breakfast | 22 | Pancakes, Omelette, Avocado toast, Eggs Benedict, Porridge and more |
| Desserts and snacks | 27 | Ice cream, Brownies, Churros, Tiramisu, Popcorn and more |
| All foods | 120 | Every food above, each once |
Pick a list and untick what you can't get
From Starter 12 or All foods, a list button narrows the wheel to that list. Each further button adds a list, and pressing a chosen one removes it. The last list stays on, and All foods brings the full wheel back. Breakfast and Desserts and snacks together make a wheel of 47 foods (22 and 27, with two foods in both lists).
- Find a food searches the list by name.
- Untick a food to take it off the wheel. The line above the list counts them, for example "43 of 44 ticked", and the wheel size shows at the top of the panel.
- Tick all and Untick all work on the foods currently shown in the list. Type "fried" into Find a food and press Untick all, and every food with "fried" in its name leaves the wheel.
- Show on the wheel chooses what each slice displays: Emoji + name or Name only. Foods without a picture, such as Biryani, show the name only either way.
Changing a list or a tick rebuilds the wheel from the list, so any food you typed in by hand is replaced. Set the lists and ticks first, then add your own foods.
Add your own foods
For a food that is not in the lists, type it into Add a food, or paste a longer list into Bulk edit. A food you add appears as a plain name. One wheel holds up to 1,000 entries.
A family that eats the same few dinners could type "Grandma's lasagna", "Taco night", "Leftovers" and "Takeout" and spin among those four. To spin only your own foods, press Untick all first.
What you can read on the wheel
Slices get thinner as foods are added. On a screen 1,280 pixels wide, the 24 cuisines showed a full name on every slice. With all 120 foods every slice still showed a name, but in small type, and a few long names are cut short with three dots, for example Yogurt and granola. The result card always shows the full name.
If a group needs to read the wheel from across a table, choose a list first. If you only need the answer, the result card has it.
Normal, Elimination and Accumulation
The Spin tab has a Mode setting with three choices. On phones, open Settings in the bottom bar and then Spin.
- Normal. Every food stays on the wheel. Each spin is independent, so the next spin repeats the last food 1 time in 12 on the starting wheel, about 8 percent.
- Elimination. Each winner leaves the wheel when you close its card. Five spins give five different foods.
- Accumulation. Wins are counted for each food, and the Results tab shows a leaderboard.
The Results tab keeps a history of the last 50 spins, newest first, with Copy results and Clear.
Is the draw fair?
Each food on the wheel has the same chance. The browser's cryptographic random number generator picks the winner first, and the wheel then turns to land on it, so how hard you click does not change the result. Weights, a button in the Entries panel, can make some foods more likely, and it is off until you turn it on.
Chance still makes runs. Pizza twice in a row is ordinary in Normal mode, and it says nothing about the wheel.
Where it helps
- A weeknight dinner for two. Press Untick all, tick the six foods you can both eat, and spin. Agree before the spin that the result counts, or the wheel turns into "best of three".
- A group that cannot agree. One person holds the device. Each friend names one food they refuse, you untick those, and the rest go on the wheel. This is the what to eat wheel use: nobody picked the food, so nobody is blamed for it.
- Five dinners for the week. Switch to Elimination, press Dishes, and spin five times. The Results tab lists the five foods, and Copy results puts them on the clipboard, one per line.
- A snack or a dessert. Choose Desserts and snacks and spin, for a party table or a "what shall we get" run at lunch.
A what to eat wheel for a group
Settling the food does not always settle the place. Spin the food first, then spin the Restaurant Picker over the places each person suggested, or the Fast Food Wheel for a quick bite. The Random Name Picker can decide who orders or who pays. For a choice that is not about food, use the Decision Maker Wheel.
What this food picker wheel does not do
- It names a food only. There is no recipe, restaurant, menu, price or map.
- There are no diet, calorie or allergy filters, and the foods carry no diet labels. If a food is unsafe or off-limits for anyone in the group, untick it before you spin.
- The built-in names cannot be renamed. You can tick them on or off and add your own foods.
- Cuisines have no pictures, and a cuisine result does not narrow the Dishes list.
- Your own foods are replaced when you change the lists or ticks.
- In Normal mode a food can come up twice in a row.
More wheels for the same decision
- For any choice that is not a meal, use the Decision Maker Wheel, which also shows the chance of each option.
- If the group only needs a yes or a no to a single idea, use the Yes or No Wheel.
- To pick who chooses the restaurant, use the Random Name Picker.
Frequently asked questions
A food picker wheel is a spinning wheel with foods on its slices that stops on one and shows it. This one starts with 12 foods and holds up to 120 from five lists. It names a food and does not give recipes or restaurants.
Yes. Press Spin, click the wheel or press the space bar, and the wheel gives one food at random. Every food on the wheel has the same chance unless you turn Weights on.
12 at the start. All foods holds 120 different foods: 24 cuisines, 44 dishes, 18 fast foods, 22 breakfast foods and 27 desserts and snacks, with the foods that sit in two lists counted once.
Yes. Press Breakfast, Desserts and snacks or Fast food under Food lists. Pressing a second list adds it, so Breakfast and Desserts and snacks together give 47 foods.
Yes. Untick a food in the list, or use Find a food and Untick all for every match. The wheel is rebuilt from the foods that stay ticked.
Yes. Type a name into Add a food, or paste a list into Bulk edit. Your own foods show as plain names, and a wheel holds up to 1,000 entries. Changing the lists or the ticks replaces them, so add them last.
Yes. Each food on the wheel has the same chance. The browser's cryptographic random number generator picks the winner first, and the wheel then turns to land on it, so how hard you click does not change the result. Weights are off until you turn them on.
In Normal mode, yes, because every spin is independent. Set Mode to Elimination in the Spin tab (on phones, under Settings) and each winner leaves the wheel, so every food can win only once until you reset it.
No. A result is a food name and a picture, and the lists have no vegan, gluten-free or allergy labels. Untick anything that does not suit your group before you spin.