Executive Briefing
Levels and the personalized future of food
It’s a lot easier to appreciate the concept of “you are what you eat” when you can see the data in real time.
By Dan Frommer on Saturday, April 10, 2021 at 8:00 am
For a month, I’ve been testing Levels, a startup service designed to help you understand how your body responds to food, exercise, stress, etc.
It does this by charting and analyzing data generated by a continuous glucose monitor — a small electronic sensor that sticks to your arm and measures your blood sugar through a tiny filament poking under your skin.
The idea is to learn how your body uniquely reacts to different types of food, how and when you eat, and what you do after you eat — whether you take a digestive stroll or immediately sink into the couch. And the thinking is that, equipped with that information, you’ll be able to make better decisions about food and lifestyle for your short-term and long-term health and wellness.
Zooming out further, the idea is that technology like this may eventually help a lot of people make better decisions.
“Our mission is to reverse the metabolic crisis,” Dr. Casey Means, co-founder and chief medical officer of Levels, tells me.
And as technology plays an increasing role in how people shop and what they consume, personalized nutrition could eventually become a big part of the food world, and a massive business.
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Hi, I’m Dan Frommer and this is The New Consumer, a publication about how and why people spend their time and money.
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