A new startup promises to craft your ideal healthy meals based on blood analysis. Habit, which plans to launch in January, will charge $299 to test a customer’s blood for over 50 factors, including blood sugar levels and genetic differences that impact nutrition. The company then offers to sell said meals for between $12 and $15.
“We aren’t in the business of fad diets and suggesting that a food is good or bad and should be avoided,” Joshua Anthony, scientific advisor to Habit, said in a report published last week. “It’s about tailored advice like whether an individual has an increased need for carbs, for instance, or might not be managing glucose well.”
Users are sent a kit for collecting samples that’s then sent to Aegis lab. Once the results are collected, customers can access their nutritional breakdown through an app that identifies a “habit type,” an explanation of which foods to focus on.
Biological analysis is a growing area of interest for many consumers, with 23andMe offering to create a breakdown of customers’ ancestry for $99. On the less invasive end of the scale, the “quantified self” movement aims to track user’s movements and basic statistics to understand health habits. The Apple Watch and select models of Fitbit will measure a user’s heartbeat to encourage healthier habits by raising heart rates.
Habit is also joining the likes of Soylent and Huel in helping people eat better and providing all the necessary nutrients. But while Soylent acts as a gloopy food substitute, with questionable results, Habit actually suggests real meals that don’t look like something out of a 1960s vision of the future.
lthough the beta test has just 100 users, initial results are positive. One user, who was told to eat carbohydrates in the evening, said he was initially skeptical but ended up making key changes in areas. The litmus test, though, will be when Habit opens to a wide audience with a diverse set of requirements.
