Huofar Customizes Your Diet Based on Health Needs and Traditional Chinese Medicine

We once interviewed the team at Huofar, a web and mobile-based application that promotes healthy living. But until now we hadn’t gotten the chance to review its iOS app after it was released recently. It just somehow slipped through the cracks. Yesterday I finally had a chance to play with it and in short, I would give the app 4 stars out of a possible 5. Read on.

The app promotes healthy living by giving users the best choices of food, based on their health needs. Some might question how does the app know our health needs? They have to ask. And oh boy…the health survey is surely a long one; over 60 questions! These questions are based on Chinese medicine (in accordance with the national standards). Some questions in the survey include: Are you lips dry? Do you often have dark circles surrounding your eyes? Is your face oily?

Users are also able to input any health problems that they might encounter, which included a pretty complete list of common health issues like high blood pressure and diabetes. For the demo’s sake, I selected high blood pressure to see what the app would recommend to. So after filling in all the necessary information, Huofar can now access your health needs and provide us with apt diet recommendations.

For food, Huofar categorizes it into fruits, meat, vegetable, and staples (rice, beans etc). The app will provide the recommended food first. Say for example, Huofar tells me that rabbit meat, oranges, black beans, and cabbage are good for folks with high blood pressure. If I like the recommendation, I can save the food in my shopping list.

For non-Chinese, the Huofar app may seem weird. But for Chinese, this app will come in pretty handy. When I was younger, my parents often made me eat this bitter black Chicken soup with all the Chinese herbs that were supposed to help me grow taller and stronger. And when I had a cold, I was be banned from having watermelons or oranges. (Because they are the “cool” kind of fruits that wouldn’t help me recover from the cold.) There isn’t much science in it since it was passed down from generation to generation, I think.

But Huofar has given it a more logical twist whereby recommendation is governed by an algorithm. While answering the long survey is a pain, it is surely worthwhile if you’re looking for a precise recommendation based on traditional Chinese medicine practices.

If you’re into traditional Chinese medicine practices, Huofar is available to download at no cost here (iTunes link). Have fun and stay healthy!