Check out these innovative nutrition products that make eating well an easier prospect.
Good nutrition is essential for getting in shape and staying healthy. You can’t out-train a bad diet.
But there’s much more to effective fuelling than tracking macros and monitoring how many calories you consume.
We all respond differently to food, and whether you want to get lean, pack on muscle or just feel more energised, unlocking your potential relies on understanding what works best for your body – which is where technology comes in.
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Nutri-Genetix
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From £28.99 subscription, nutri-genetix.com
Nutritionally complete meal replacement drinks that provide a guaranteed hit of macro and micronutrients in a convenient shake aren’t new, but Nutri-Genetix takes this idea to the next level with a shake that’s tailored to your DNA.
Using a simple at-home cheek swab test, Nutri-Genetix digs deep into 28 DNA traits to assess how you metabolise and process different foods, while identifying any food sensitivities.
A colour-coded report shows your genetically coded fat and carbohydrate sensitivity, gluten and lactose tolerance, and caffeine metabolisation, as well as energy levels, cognitive focus, workout recovery and muscle performance.
The results are used to create a daily Bodyfuel shake formula – made with pea protein, brown rice and flaxseed – that plugs your nutritional gaps while playing to your strengths.
It’s all vegan-friendly, non-GMO, gluten-, soy- and lactose-free, with no artificial nasties.
Each 35g serving of NGX BodyFuel packs a high-protein (28g), low-carb and healthy-fat ratio to optimise muscle performance, help reduce body fat and increase satiety.
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Noom
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£17.25 per month, noom.com
Noom takes the fight to quick-fix diets, using cognitive behavioural therapy and coaching to change your relationship with food.
The aim: to inspire the behaviour changes that get long-term results and avoid yo-yo weight fluctuations.
After an initial online survey to assess your goals, motivations and challenges, you get a customised course of daily lessons that take you back to school, providing tips on how to make smarter food choices, quizzes to test your newly acquired knowledge, and help with setting nutrition goals.
It’s an interactive journey designed to boost your knowledge of nutrition and interrogate your relationship with food, all while you lose weight.
Far from a quick-fix app, this requires a real commitment to improving your nutrition, but all your endeavours are backed up by real-life coaches and expert support, plus in-app tools like food and water logging, and budget setting.
FoodMarble AIRE
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£149, foodmarble.com
Diet is a tough nut for self-monitoring tech to crack, but FoodMarble’s breathalyser gets more personal, spotting the foods that trigger digestive discomfort like bloating, constipation and diarrhoea.
A quick and easy blow test reads the hydrogen levels in your breath, caused by fermentation (bacteria breaking down foods that haven’t been fully digested and absorbed in the small intestine).
Your test results sync with an app to reveal if it really was that gluten-loaded pizza that did the damage.
MyLevels
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£99 Android / £199 iPhone (includes sensors), mylevels.com
Currently open to people who want to join the beta test, MyLevels skin-worn sensor piggy-backs data collected by a real-time blood glucose monitor to offer a window into how your blood sugar levels respond to what you eat.
Discover how quickly your body processes different pre-workout fuel, which foods spike your levels more than others, and the impact that stress and sleep have on your blood sugar.
Apple Watch Series 6
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From £379, apple.com
The latest incarnation of the Apple Watch is big on health and fitness, adding a pulse oximeter to its ECG heart skills.
It also packs a vast array of third-party nutrition apps that make it a serious tool for anyone looking to improve their diet.
From food and macro trackers like MyFitnessPal, to hydration monitoring and alerts, and even meal-prep planners, this multi-talented timepiece offers wide-ranging support for your nutritional goals.
H2OPal
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$99, h2opal.com
Good drinking habits support effective nutrition, but even though water is free and on tap, it’s remarkably easy to let your hydration slip.
This 550ml high-grade borosilicate glass bottle provides a smart solution. Sensors automatically track your lugs of H2O, while the bottle glows to remind you if you forget.
iOS, Apple Watch app and even an Amazon Alexa skill also nag you into hitting daily hydration goals.
Ate
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Free (£29.99 annual premium subscription), youate.com
This simple food-journaling app puts emotion into food tracking, logging not just what you ate but why you ate and how you felt about it afterwards.
Snap meal photos and add notes that make you think carefully about your eating habits and motivations, like whether you ate because you were hungry or bored.
You can also track experiments, like eating from smaller plates or ditching the phone during meals.
Waterlogged
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Free (with in-app purchases), waterlogged.com
This hydration monitor makes it easy to track your water intake day-to-day, and see if your drinking is on point over time.
You can set targets for daily H2O, and assign your own bottles and glass sizes to make it easier to record.
But most usefully of all, it’ll remind you if you’ve left that full water bottle on your desk but forgotten to drink it. It also plays nice with Apple Health, MyFitnessPal and Fitbit.
Change4Life Food Scanner
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Free, nhs.co.uk/change4life
Want to know what’s really inside the food you’re plucking off the supermarket shelves before you buy it?
This free Public Health England-powered barcode scanner app uses augmented reality and clever graphics to bring those classic traffic light nutritionals to life.
Each stat is cleverly illustrated to visually hammer home just how much sugar, salt and saturated fat is sneaking into your basket – and your body.
Fit Men Cook
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£3.99, fitmencook.com
Half the battle of sticking to a healthier diet is making it simple to create meals you really look forward to.
With more than 750 recipes, complete with macros and micros, full shopping lists and videos, this app helps take the pain out of meal prep.
The recipes can be scaled to cater for the number of servings you need, and you can search for meals that meet your dietary tastes and needs.
Words: Kieran Alger
