For example: heat source instead of hotplate (2 charges) OR charcoal smoker (1 charges) OR integrated toolset (1 charges) OR coffee maker (2 charges) OR nearby fire.
The protein shake is a pretty big offender IMO, and i feel the same can be done with fruit instead of 1x strawberries OR 1x blueberries OR 1x irradiated orange OR 1x orange etc. etc.
Because for all intents and purposes an irradiated orange is exactly the same as a freshly picked orange.
So i think it’s necessary to give items “tool_category”: and “component_category”: tags in their .json entries.
I think it’ll help legibility along in the crafting lists and make it more intuitive when making new recipes.
On a mildly related note i think crafting in Cata could do with some fuzziness, because right now a novice cook will use the same amount of heat (charges) as a master chef does. The same could be said of soldering, welding and everything else using charges as a tool.
The simple solution would be to just not report how many charges a recipe will require from a tool, and the complex solution would be to make the amount of charges necessary for a recipe dependent on the PC’s skill with those tools.