Zoe Doesn't Like Gluten-free

A new relationship is fraught with tensions. Both parties are sussing the other out and monitoring their reactions. Things can improve or deteriorate. And over recent weeks Zoe and I have been growing apart. I discovered a year ago that I’m gluten-intolerant. This is one of the most common allergies in the UK and affects several million people. It’s easy to manage. All supermarkets offer a range of gluten-free foods. But it is a problem to Zoe. No account is taken of any food allergies. Zoe scores foods primarily on the basis of how processed they are. However, many gluten-free foods are processed to remove or avoid gluten. Thus they fall foul of Zoe’s scoring system and are given unreasonably low scores. For example, I usually eat cornflakes for breakfast (a gluten-free cereal). To a half-bowl of these, I add nuts, seeds, blueberries, natural yoghourt and a sliced banana. Cornflakes are scored zero on the Zoe system. And despite the other healthy ingredients I include, my whole meal is downgraded because of it. Zoe wants you to score 75 or over on their system every day. The best I’ve ever managed is 62.

Zoe’s overall intention seems to be to turn pizza guzzlers into card-carrying vegans. It’s a laudable objective. In this mission, Zoe sends you rafts of messages every day, filled with dietary information in bite-sized chunks. It’s a system of programmed learning for people with low attention spans and little or no knowledge. The messages are broken up in one or two sentences, with a button to press to get the next chunk. The button is invariably labelled ‘Wow. Tell Me More’. To be frank, I find these so irritating that I’ve largely given up reading them. This messaging is another example of Zoe’s inflexibility.

Much is made in the advertising that Zoe will offer you specific dietary advice, tailored to your needs. As a general guide the Zoe system is fine. But the specifics of it are far too inflexible to be helpful. The Zoe scoring system assumes that one size will fit all. Taking no account of allergies is a serious flaw. Low scores are given to foods to encourage someone to seek higher-scoring alternatives. But I am unable to substitute gluten-free foods for gluten-full ones. Surely it is not beyond the wit of whoever designed the Zoe scoring system to accommodate one of the most common food allergies in the world. It’s looking very much like Zoe and I will soon be parting ways.