How Timiya works
Every nutrition app tells you what you ate. Timiya estimates what your body absorbed. Because a plate of githeri with chai is not the same as a plate of githeri with lemon water, even though the food is identical.
Step 1: Log your meal
Snap a photo of your plate, whether now or at the end of the day. Timiya knows Kenyan dishes by name, identifies what’s on the plate, and asks up to three quick questions, such as when you had your tea or how the greens were cooked. You can also type what you ate in your own words. Recent meals are a tap away.
Snap
Take a photo of your plate, whether now or later from your camera roll. You can also type what you ate. Recent meals are a tap away.
Recognize
Timiya identifies each item on the plate, estimates portions, and asks you to confirm before moving on. If it gets something wrong, you fix it before it counts.
Clarify
Up to three quick questions, such as when you had your tea or how the greens were cooked. These details change how much your body may absorb.
No barcode scanning. Portions you’d recognize. No guessing which of twelve “bean” entries to pick. You already take pictures of your food, and now that photo does the work for you.
Step 2: See what your body absorbs
Timiya tracks 39 nutrients: 13 vitamins, 12 minerals, 7 fats, and 7 macronutrients including fiber. For each one, it shows you two numbers: what you ate, and an estimate of what that counts as once your body has absorbed what it can. Over days and weeks, you see where you’re comfortable, where you keep falling short, and some of the patterns behind the gaps.
The bioavailability layer is what sets this apart. Spinach looks rich in calcium, but oxalates may hold much of it back. Beans carry iron on paper, but phytates in unsoaked beans may bind some of it. Tea with the meal may block iron, while lemon or tomato may help. Greens cooked with a little oil let your body use more of their vitamin A. Timiya adjusts for what you ate with it, how it was cooked and when, so its estimate is closer to what your body received.
Without changes
With changes
Your completeness score estimates what your body can use, not what was on the plate. Have your chai an hour after lunch, not with it. Same food, same cost, and your body keeps more of the iron.
Your profile builds with every meal
A single day of tracking tells you something. A week tells you more. A month of accumulated data reveals the patterns that no single meal snapshot ever could, and those patterns are where the real value lives.
Day 1
Your first meal starts today’s nutritional completeness: an estimate of how much of your day’s key nutrients your body can use. Not what was on the plate. What it counts as.
Week 1
After a week of logging, the Nutrition page sorts your nutrients into Watch, Improving and Comfortable. Paired bars separate what you ate from what it counts as, and status badges flag where you’re falling short.
Over time
A month of data shows what no single day can. Each nutrient’s page charts what you ate against what it counts as, over 7 days, 28 days, 3 months or a year, so you can see when it dips and when it recovers.
Pattern detected
As you log over months, Timiya is designed to spot recurring preparation habits that hold back absorption, drawn from your own meals across days and weeks. Today, the monthly view already shows patterns such as how much more of your iron counts in meals where you skip chai.
Suggested change
When a meal has a gap and a matching tip, Timiya suggests one simple change to try, free ideas first. Meal ideas for your next meal show how much each could add to your day.
7-day trend
Per-nutrient pages show your 7-day trend with paired bars: what you ate versus what it counts as. You can see which days it dipped and what you ate differently.
Each week
The weekly report shows what improved, what slipped, where to focus, and the foods you ate most often. The focus list ranks by how far short you are, so you know where one change would matter most.
Look back by day, week, month or year. It isn’t a snapshot: the more meals you log, the more Timiya has to go on when it points to the change worth trying next.
Insights that grow with every meal
The daily score is where it starts. Over weeks and months, Timiya shows how each nutrient is trending and the patterns in how you eat. As you log over months, Timiya is designed to show which changes worked for you, too.
Nutrient trajectories
Each month, Timiya shows whether each nutrient is improving, stable, declining or in sharp decline, week by week. As you log over months, Timiya is designed to project where a nutrient is heading (the dashed line) and roughly when it could reach your target.
A declining nutrient shows up in the same monthly view. Timiya is designed to trace a slide like this to a quiet change in what you eat, such as less mala, and to suggest a food such as omena to bring it back up.
Seasonal patterns
Kenyan food availability is deeply seasonal. With a year of data, Timiya is designed to learn your annual nutrition rhythm and spot gaps before they open.
If your vitamin A dropped when mango season ended last year, Timiya is designed to flag it ahead of time this year and suggest orange-fleshed sweet potato, which is also rich in beta-carotene and easy to find all year.
Some of this already works: the monthly view flags a nutrient that drops on weekends. No single daily score would reveal these cycles, because only the long view makes them visible.
Nudge adoption
Timiya is designed to track which nudges you take up and which you drop. If preparation changes stick for you more readily than ingredient swaps, it is designed to learn that and focus future nudges accordingly.
Top food sources
Each nutrient’s page lists the foods you eat that are richest in it, per 100 g, with how often you ate them. Change the range and the list follows.
Your year
The yearly heatmap shows your consistency at a glance: which weeks you logged, which weeks you didn’t, and how your scores changed. Tap a week to see its days. Streaks build because consistency matters more than perfection.
These insights are possible because Timiya estimates absorption, not just intake. After six months of logging, Timiya is designed to build a personal nutrition model from your own meals that deepens with every meal you log.
Per-nutrient deep-dive
Every tracked nutrient has its own page: your trend, what you ate and what it counts as, the factors that made the difference, and the foods you eat that are richest in it. Timiya is designed to add what a long shortfall may mean for you, and a personalized path to your target based on the foods you already eat.
Health context
Most nutrition apps stop at “you’re low in iron.” Timiya is designed to explain what that may mean for your body in plain language, and to connect the numbers to things you might already be noticing.
Fear motivates once. Aspiration sustains. Timiya is designed to show both cards together: one for what a long shortfall may mean, the other for what enough looks like. When a nutrient reaches your target, the first card is designed to step back and the second to become a quiet confirmation.
Path to adequacy
Timiya is designed to go a step further and build a personalized plan, starting with the foods you already buy and cook.
Each change is designed to be ranked by impact and tracked over time: “Active” when Timiya sees you doing it consistently, a percentage for partial adoption, and “Not active” for the biggest change you haven’t tried yet.
The progress bar is designed to show the projected total if all changes stick, and to tell you honestly when the remaining gap needs a new food entirely. No false promises.
The eaten and counts-as bars show the gap between what was on your plate and Timiya’s estimate of what your body received. Below them, Timiya lists the factors that made the difference, with their multipliers.
The 7-day trend chart shows what each day counted as, with a dashed target line. Color coding shows at a glance which days you hit your target, which were close, and which fell short.
Each nutrient page also lists the foods you eat that are richest in it, per 100 g, with how often you ate them. Over time, you learn which of your everyday foods are doing the real nutritional work.
Built on decades of research. Delivered as a daily tool.
Tannins in tea blocking iron. Oxalates holding back calcium. Fat helping your body use carotenoids. Fermentation breaking down phytates. Meat helping you absorb the iron in plant foods. Vitamin C helping iron absorption in the same meal. Calcium competing with iron at the same meal. None of this is new. It is documented in decades of WHO, FAO, and peer-reviewed research.
What has been missing is a consumer product that applies it personally. Timiya follows your meals over weeks and months and shows which nutrients keep falling short. As you log over months, it is designed to trace the cause to specific preparation habits and build a path to your target from the foods you already buy.
A single meal gives you a score. A month shows trends and patterns, such as how much more of your iron counts in meals without chai. Over a year, Timiya is designed to spot seasonal gaps and build a personal nutrition model from your own meals.
We say “may” when the evidence is suggestive. We say “does” when it is established. We do not overstate. We do not simplify into nonsense. And we start with what you already eat.
See what your body takes from every meal.
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Get early accessTimiya gives general nutrition information. It isn't medical advice and doesn't diagnose, treat or prevent any condition. If you're pregnant, breastfeeding, have a health condition or take medicines, check with your clinic before changing how you eat. In an emergency, call 999 or 112.