1. Good gastronomy begins with good nutrition
“Gastronomy is the rational knowledge of humans as they feed themselves. Its purpose is to ensure the preservation of mankind through the best possible food” (Brillat-Savarin, 1826).
Gastronomy is about nourishing oneself, while preserving oneself, one’s health, understanding where our food comes from, and enjoying it in a convivial environment. Gastronomy begins with nutrition.
At the Academy, we believe that no food should be off-limits and that the occasional indulgence forms part of a healthy diet. To that end, it’s important to understand your individual response to food. Science shows that everybody’s response to food is unique. Even identical twins. Your metabolism is not fully defined by your genes.
Generic food advice isn’t working
Diabetes, heart disease and other chronic health problems are not improving. Current approaches to address them view weight gain as the problem, rather than a symptom of poor metabolic health. They also treat us all the same, when in reality our bodies are all very different.
Consequently, your body is unique, logically then – so is the nutrition you need. The team at ZOE have developed a series of studies and their PREDICT studies have shown that there is up to a tenfold variation in responses to the same meal for different people.
PREDICT is the largest in-depth nutrition study in the world, conducted with scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford Medicine, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and King’s College London.
Their novel findings were published in leading medical journal, Nature Medicine, in June 2020.
Taking a holistic approach to understand how your body works.
Using the most advanced tests and cutting-edge science available to help you understand how your body works is essential to reducing dietary inflammation and naturally improving gut health.
Based on the tests used in PREDICT, ZOE have developed an at-home test kit and can provide comprehensive insights into your biology, covering the gut microbiome and your blood sugar and blood fat responses.
Unhealthy effects can be caused by what we eat.
Excessive blood sugar and fat spikes can overwhelm your body’s normal, natural responses. This can trigger a variety of harmful responses, from blood sugar crashes and hunger to the immune system triggering inflammation.
Many different mechanisms are involved, from increased calorie consumption as a result of regular blood sugar crashes, to oxidative stress and altered blood fat metabolism.
Repeated often enough these can lead to weight gain and chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Using the most advanced tests and cutting-edge science available to help you understand how your body works is essential to reducing dietary inflammation and naturally improving gut health.
Based on the tests used in PREDICT, ZOE have developed an at-home test kit and can provide comprehensive insights into your biology, covering the gut microbiome and your blood sugar and blood fat responses.
Your gut microbes play a key role in your health.
Each of us has a unique gut microbiome. Research has helped identify a distinct set of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ gut microbes that are linked with specific foods and metabolic health.
ZOE’s unique microbiome test uses deep metagenomic sequencing to understand which ‘good’ and ‘bad’ microbes you have. This enables individuals to identify personalised recommendations that can potentially help increase the ‘good’ microbes that are under-represented in your gut.
Ever wondered how a specific food or meal impacts your body?
ZOE combines artificial intelligence with data from thousands of participants in their studies to generate personalised scores for any food or meal you eat. These scores are delivered in real-time through the ZOE app, which has hundreds of thousands of foods and thousands of meal suggestions for you to choose from.
Insights that support success
ZOE shows you how to put your unique scores into action, providing real-time feedback on meals that you eat, with insights including how to support your metabolic health and nourish your gut – you’ll learn how to eat for your body, for life.
At the frontier of science.
ZOE’s research combines the latest technologies, artificial intelligence, and collaboration with world-leading scientists, to move beyond a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to nutrition. PREDICT studies are the largest nutrition studies of their kind in the world and they’ve been conducted in collaboration with researchers and scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford Medicine, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and King’s College London.
Our partnership
The British Academy of Gastronomes have partnered with ZOE and members receive an at home test upon joining that provide an inside look at your blood fat, blood sugar, and gut microbiome health. Using your results, every food is scored (from 0-100), so you can make better choices of what to eat. We teach you how to swap, add and combine foods so you can eat in the best way for your body and regularly retest your gut to see how your microbiome has improved by following the ZOE program. This data led approach to personalised nutrition enables our members to become masters of their own nutritional needs and helps promote healthy gastronomy for all.