Genetic cuisine and ready meals

Bored by superfoods, super hype, personalised medicine, special people…? Well I was — now I am amused! All of this ‘fluff’ can be turned into money if you are clever enough to find a niche and use all the fancy words.

Enter Habit, a San Francisco-based company that, for a mere US$299, will create unique diet plans for individuals based on their genetic make-up.

Now each person has to put some effort in here just to ensure that they understand how important and unique they are.

Habit mails each person a test kit and a “proprietary metabolic challenge beverage”. Showing their commitment to the cause of their ‘specialness’, each person must collect finger prick blood samples both before and after drinking the sugar, fat and carbohydrate containing beverage that has been “designed to replicate a typical American diet”.

Lab analyses of how 60 biomarkers in the blood samples changed after consuming the challenge drink, along with the more standard information such as height, weight, waist circumference, activity level and health goals, are then combined (surely algorithmically) to formulate a personalised diet for each person.

Chefs will then prepare personalised meals, which will be couriered to the door for $12–$15 each. [I have a mental image of a suitably attired chef wavering between adding teff or sacha inchi but certainly not quinoa or kale (so yesterday) as every meal is individually prepared — not.]

All of the testing, the test kit, an app, a coaching session with a nutritionist and all diet recommendations can be yours for just $299. The service is currently recruiting for its beta-test program launching in January next year.

Top sentences from the Habit website:

• Phenotypic flexibility is used to understand your body’s metabolism and how your body responds to food.
• Our proprietary algorithms that drive our Nutrition Intelligence Engine are built using scientific expertise from the fields of nutrition, genetics and systems biology.
• Using sophisticated biological, anthropometric and genetic testing, we help you hear what your body has to say by translating your body’s needs into a personalised nutrition action blueprint.
• The secret to looking good in your jeans is in your genes.

I love it — this is taking ready meals to an entirely new level. Move over superfoods and personalised medicine, we are now entering the realm of genetic cuisine!

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/tonatiuh moreno