Not reliable with non European foods
I enjoy the test results and food grading system. I don’t feel like the app is suited to rank certain things- home made fermented foods, etc. They also don’t have reliable ratings for a lot of foods I eat- South Asian, South East Asian, and East Asian foods. I used their recipe import feature for dosa and idli and AI tried to calculate that they both had ‘beef medallion’ in it and I have no idea why. They are both fermented, which you would think might be better for your microbiome, but it has no way to account for that in how you log the recipe. So, it ranks no differently than if the raw ingredients were un-fermented.
I’m hopeful that when they have been around longer and have a larger audience (more data points with larger varieties of food) that they will be able to overcome this, but it is frustrating and seems counterproductive. I’ve been enjoying their podcast, their articles, and generally the way they make information understandable for laypeople like me. It has taught me a different approach to nutrition!
I’m hopeful that when they have been around longer and have a larger audience (more data points with larger varieties of food) that they will be able to overcome this, but it is frustrating and seems counterproductive. I’ve been enjoying their podcast, their articles, and generally the way they make information understandable for laypeople like me. It has taught me a different approach to nutrition!
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Year-long Subscription Not Worth It
Like other posters, the initial process of doing the testing and seeing your results are helpful. The app scores your food and you can get a good sense of how to eat in the first couple of months. In those first couple months, I felt like the app was working okay. Occasional glitches, but nothing major. The longer I have used the app, the more I have been frustrated. New versions have come out, but it seems to be getting worse at logging means rather than better. The response I got from customer service was that they were aware of the logging problems and are working on it. Clearly from these comments, they have been “working on it” for 3 years. The cost to keep the app for the year just isn’t worth it. Use another food tracking app to count your micros and you’ll likely have just as much success - once you know/understand how your blood fat and blood sugar.
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Total game-changer
If you discovered that what you were eating wasn’t contributing to your health and could be contributing to making you ill in the long-term, would you do something about it? Working on the basis that if you don’t have your health, life is going to be very much harder for you, how do you find out what’s right for you? One obvious way I wanted to explore was by having personalised information and up stepped Zoe. From the initial testing to the support every day, Zoe has removed so much uncertainty around what’s right for me. In a world where one expert says X is good for us and another says the opposite, the science-based approach that is reliable is just what the doctor ordered!
I’ve lost a stone and quite a few inches, dropping a dress size at least. I have more energy and stamina and haven’t dieted or been hungry. My skin is clear and my eyes bright! People comment on how well I look. (No, I didn’t get paid for writing this!).
Wishing you the best health you can have.
I’ve lost a stone and quite a few inches, dropping a dress size at least. I have more energy and stamina and haven’t dieted or been hungry. My skin is clear and my eyes bright! People comment on how well I look. (No, I didn’t get paid for writing this!).
Wishing you the best health you can have.
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Recommendations - Great; App - Not So Much
The Zoe recommendations, research, testing, etc., are top notch. It's just too bad those are paired with such an unappealing app. First of all, it is designed strictly for use on a phone, so that puts huge constraints on its user interface - small screen, only basic displays. If they had the option to use it effectively and as one might expect on a computer, laptop, or iPad (or similar device), it would make all the difference in the world. For instance, in logging your food, it's easy enough to find the foods you want to log, and the app will tell you how well that serves your gut health, but that's all. There's absolutely nothing else: no calorie counts, no nutritional information, and so no totals for those, either. Lots of people have the need to track that stuff. For instance, I have osteoporosis, so I want to track calcium. I also want to lose weight, so it might be good to track calories, carbs, or whatever. I might want to see if I'm meeting my daily nutritional requirements in other ways as well. Anyway, I do understand that the app is supposedly tuned to my personal test results, so that is a complex algorithm, but the basics would be nice, too. I just think the app, in it's phone-size restricted interface, is inadequate. I rarely use it, because I like to see that other stuff, too. I would much prefer to log everything using Zoe.
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Impressed by the science
I have completed my testing and been using the Zoe recommendations from my results for approximately two weeks so far. I can honestly say this has been the best introduction to a health app I’ve ever had. As a person who is trained in conducting experiments, I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of instructions and true attempts to tailor results to me as an individual microbiome. Their logging app takes a bit to get used to and doesn’t have the same level of catalog as some longer standing apps but I have been impressed with their AI feature that allows you to enter the ingredients in plain English and creates a reasonable recipe from it. I have also been impressed by their recipe database and have tried a few to pleasant results so far. Highly recommend to anyone trying to actually understand their body.
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A struggle
Trying to take the test has proven difficult and frustrating for me as you are given quite vague advance information about what you need to do on test day, and then on the day itself I woke up to a notification sent at 1am which finally released the detailed instructions within the app, but the first instruction said I was 8 hours overdue applying the sensor! Surely a reminder at or before the time I was supposed to apply the sensor would have been more appropriate? You also cannot take the test in the weeks before a summer holiday (not allowed to swim with the sensor on) nor really when travelling (harder to have clear time for the test and manage what you eat) so anyone who travels internationally, has a professional job and childcare commitments might struggle to take the test especially with the guesswork on the timings and tasks. It would be good if the designers considered the needs of people with busier lifestyles and made reminders and timing information more prominent in advance.
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Absolutely transformational!
At 52 I was worried that after 5 decades of a sweet tooth that I needed to be more intentional about my diet and lifestyle for a longer life and health span. The results from my Zoe testing were enlightening (both good and bad). The Zoe App is absolutely incredible at helping you understand which foods affect your personal biology with a food scores. Recipes suggestions are scored for your personal health too. After decades of failing willpower and never consistently eating better, I now feel utterly empowered to make lifelong changes. I’m one week in and the App has made it easy for me to choose food and recipes that optimise MY health. I don’t feel hungry or tired. I feel better and have reduced my waist size by 3cm already. There were many surprises where I thought some foods were good for me that are indeed not so good. The App allows for a balanced approach to still eating not so healthy food in moderation surrounded by healthier choices as the default. Great daily lessons to help educate you and also how to use the App. The testing process was super easy to follow. A reasonably big financial investment for many, when joining Zoe, but I have to say it’s the best money I have ever spent. Could not recommend it enough!
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Great idea, not great app, horrible customer service
The idea for Zoe is fantastic, weaving many ‘latest thinking’ ideas on nutrition and health into single service, app and set of testing. Unfortunately, the app isnt up to much. But that’s fine - can live it. But the customer service when to need to get in touch is awful. You are directed onto chats on the app which seem to just stop and go dead and all of a sudden nobody answers for days, if ever again. Reverting over to email doesn’t seem to work, and I got passive aggressive responses from staff. Customer service issues might all seem trivial but with the number of tests you have to do it’s common for there to be an issue or something that goes wrong and you need help with. Then you are in trouble. It’s a real shame as I was so excited about this but I can’t recommend this service and think it’s best to steer clear. There are other, better CGM based services if that’s what you are after. And the cutting edge science isn’t so cutting edge at this point in any case. Looking forward to getting back my ‘gut test’ in any case, so there’s that.
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Good system, bad app
I love the concept of Zoe so much, and have been able to make real, meaningful changes in my life that I will be grateful for however. That being said - this app is something else. At $59 a month, I have not gone a single time using the app with it offering full functionality. Sometimes the search pulls up no results for something like tofu. Sometimes you type in the ingredients you’re using to make a recipe and are forced to navigate an endless cycle of refreshes and are never able to create the recipe. Sometimes you forget to save an imported recipe from a website, go back to enter it again, and suddenly the website URL can’t be read. Sometimes verified items suddenly don’t have scores attached to them, but later in the day the scores magically reappear. I rely on the Zoe app to meal plan for the week ahead (get my CSA box Weds, plan and log meals Thurs, grocery shop Fri) and for at least one month I haven’t been able to rely on the app working, which has caused me to fall off of the lesson plan as well. The app should just work so much better for the price, and for the entire concept of working Zoe into your day to day life. So very disappointing.
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Horrible Clunky App
Good way to learn of your specific, individual dietary needs but the app is truly awful. Apart from the fact that it has had annoying bug problems at least twice in the last 6 weeks, logging a meal takes forever if the recipe is not one of those already in the system. Keep getting warnings that I’ve eaten too much fat but although the app gives an individual score for each item of food, it does not provide you with any idea of the fat score of each ingredient so before you know it a handful of worthy tasting pumpkin seeds has toppled you into the abyss. Having said that, the online support was good - not universally, it depends on who you get - but if you need questions answered you can wait anything between two hours and 2 days. If you can put up with that and afford the steep price tag all well and good……but if you don’t like lentils, forget it, as virtually every recipe on the site is lentil based.
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