The day you receive your results and recommendations is a very exciting day for our customers. You get to know how healthy your gut is and find out what foods you get to keep eating! The Superfoods and Enjoys are easy enough to understand, and you know these are foods you should be eating every day.
However, what about the Minimize category?
What does it really mean to minimize a food or a whole list of foods, for that matter? They weren’t listed under Avoid, but would it be better to try to avoid them as much as possible? With questions often circulating about this specific category, we wanted to cover them all right here!
If it’s on your minimize list, would it be better to avoid the food altogether?
Actually, the answer to this question is not necessarily. We place foods on your Minimize list because they are not an absolute Avoid for you, but you should actively try to decrease your consumption of them. If there are foods you don't eat on your Minimize list, you don't have to eat them.
Your Minimize foods are included on your food recommendation lists. However, you do not have to include them every day during your meals. You can stick to your Superfoods and Enjoy foods to make up your daily meals and get enough variety in your diet. That being said, if you strongly desire a Minimize food, you can eat it in moderation, keeping your Minimize food intake at 20% or less of your daily intake.
Minimize foods help diversify your gut microbiome. So, if you like or want to have any of your Minimize foods, you absolutely can—just less of them. If the 20% is a little hard to work with, think of having one different Minimize food per meal, per day.
Why do you need to minimize?
Based on its necessary nutrient content, a food may be beneficial for specific microbiome functions. However, if any health conditions are inferred from the questionnaire or if our Glycemic Response prediction model predicts a high glycemic response to this food for the given person, then the food may go on your “Minimize” or “Avoid” list. The main reason we take phenotype information into account is to ensure we do no harm while we address the biology of the functional systems.
Let’s add another layer to our recommendations explanation. The foods that make it onto your “Minimize” and “Avoid” lists may contain potentially harmful components that can’t be neutralized without the right organisms present.
In many cases, our microbiome protects us from substances in our food that can potentially be damaging to our health. Certain microbes can metabolize these substances and make them less harmful. But, of course, not all of us have microbiomes that are capable of doing this. For example, oxalate is found in high amounts in foods like spinach, beet greens, and almonds. A specific group of microbes can neutralize oxalates when they are present. Oxalates are known to bind calcium, creating calcium oxalate (a.k.a kidney stones). If your microbiome does not house oxalate-neutralizing organisms, over time, calcium oxalates may form, increasing the risk of kidney stones. This is one of the reasons why some people may find high oxalate foods on their Minimize list. It doesn't mean they can't eat them at all, but they should eat less of them for now.
How much do you minimize?
Each customer receives a customized list of foods that land in Superfood, Enjoy, Minimize, and Avoid. These lists are also customized by food types, such as proteins, vegetables, fruits, etc. This is how you will learn exactly how many minimized options you could have each day of each type of food!
We recommend limiting the intake of your Minimize foods to less than 20% of your daily food intake. You can eat them; you should just be more mindful about how much you eat.
But keep in mind what we mentioned above. These are still foods you should minimize your weekly intake of, and you should not be having the same Minimize foods on a daily basis if you choose to eat them. For example, if you love grapes but they’re on your Minimize list, try to eat them once or twice a week rather than consuming only grapes as a daily Minimize fruit serving. The daily consumption may be too much for your system and could cause the food to become an Avoid on your next test.
If you would like to continue your research and understanding, please see our articles about your Viome scores and recommendations.
You can also learn more about how Viome creates your food recommendations with our webinar recording, The Signal in the Noise: How Viome Generates Your Food Recommendations.
