Nutrition in the age of personalization

By Robert Morton
April 26, 2019

I get asked a lot about the underlying ideas that drive how we build the menu at Territory, and gab on it plenty in the phone chats I’m fortunate to have almost every week with customers. So I figured I’d capture the high level thinking in print as well for folks interested.

Good timing too as we’ve got some cool new improvement stuff coming out on specific parts of that menu experience over the next week (hint, relates to macros).

At the most basic level we’re trying to make intentional eating, i.e. eating with some sort of health goal in mind, as tasty and delicious as it is good for you. That two-step, unquestionable health + real flavor, can be tricky because health goals and the nutrition that supports them are so diverse.

Walk into a nutrition conversation in the fitness world right now for example, and you may well encounter a low-fat/high carb advocate in the same outing as you meet a carb-trimming, high fat keto adherent. There are lots of spots in between too, including plenty of people looking to generally “eat healthy” with whole, natural, unprocessed foods.

We’re inspired by and want to support smart takes all along that spectrum. With the common thread that nutrition isn’t one size fits all. Personalization has a big role to play for each of us.

We also know though that for many it’s easy to get lost in the details and ultimately conk out of healthy eating, losing access to all the benefits in a fog of too much information.

So to strike a good balance for people who want to eat with intention and have a really great time doing it… we concentrate on two things, providing a simple foundation for clean eating AND offering easy tools to personalize your approach when you wish.

That simple foundation basically boils down to “eat more veggies, get good protein, include healthy fats, and try to trim your intake of processed carbohydrates/gluten, dairy and sugar”. A little more detailed view looks like this:

  • No ingredients containing gluten or dairy
  • Responsibly sourced animal proteins
  • Lots of veggies, some fruits and nuts
  • Some gluten-free grains, and occasional natural sweeteners (no refined sugars)
  • Healthy fats

From there we want to provide the tools for folks to personalize their nutrition further, tuning to find a mix that works for them, all with the least amount of brain effort possible.

Thus our foray into features for tuning our menus in new directions, including more specific macronutrient-based game plans, ingredient-focused approaches like Whole30, vegetarian meals, Mediterranean, the list goes on.

We’ll provide updates as we roll out new stuff down these various personalization pathways and dietary preferences.

In all cases, the overarching goal/challenge will be the same… helping you improve your wellbeing, with minimum brain effort, so you can get out there and explore more of all the wonderful terrain life has to offer.

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