Perhaps it should be less about personalized nutrition and more about taking personal responsibility for your health. Personalized nutrition is rooted in the concept that one size does not fit all, and who doesn’t want to think they’re special? The concept of personalized nutrition is inherently appealing to the human ego. Simple messages recognizing individuality therefore resonate deeply with consumers, explaining the popularity of such messages in sales and marketing. Even to the point of manufacturing personalized food for people uniqueness, suggesting 3D food printing as a good candidate for food customization.
Now, there certainly are some legitimate differences between people. Some have a peanut allergy, and keel over if they eat a peanut. And others have celiac disease and have to avoid gluten, or genetically are lactose intolerant. There’s an enzyme mutation common in some parts of Asia that protects against alcoholism because you don’t metabolize alcohol as efficiently; so, toxic metabolites build up. I did a fascinating video about fast versus slow caffeine metabolizers, and the difference in health benefits that actually extends to athletic performance. Caffeine is ergogenic, performance-enhancing––but only in fast metabolizers, shaving more than a minute off a 10 kilometers of cycling, whereas slower metabolizers got no benefit, or caffeine actually slows them down, adding two minutes to their cycling time, depending on which kind of gene they have that codes the enzyme that breaks it down. But for most people, in most situations, we are more similar than different….