Frequently Asked Questions

Zen Analyze is a daily visual food journal drawn from East Asian dietary tradition. Each morning you take a brief, 30-second visual capture, answer a couple of gentle questions, and the app pairs your observation with one of nine culinary patterns — alongside three descriptive notes (warmth, moisture, energy) and ingredient suggestions drawn from classical food literature, translated for your local grocery list.

Anyone curious about a slower, more mindful start to the day. Zen Analyze leans on traditional East Asian wellness sensibilities, but it is written for a modern North American daily rhythm — your kitchen, your grocery list, your pace.

Trackers ask you to measure. Rituals ask you to notice. Zen Analyze is built for the second kind of attention. There is no leaderboard, no streak shame, no number to beat. Just a quiet morning gesture you return to, and a journal that grows alongside the seasons.

A Daily Moment is your 30-second morning practice — a quiet visual gesture, in the East Asian dietary tradition, that informs what to put on the plate today. Open the app, take a quick visual capture through the in-app guide, and immediately receive a culinary pattern, three descriptive notes (warmth, moisture, energy), and a daily food pairing for breakfast, lunch, hydration, and a closing tip.

The brief morning visual capture is a digitized version of a centuries-old East Asian dietary culture practice — a quiet gesture used to inform what to put on the plate that day. The app uses the image solely to match your observation to a culinary pairing pattern. The image is not stored long-term, is never used for facial recognition, and is purged automatically after processing.

You see one of nine culinary patterns — drawn from classical East Asian food traditions, with names like Balanced Garden, Gentle Broth, or Warming Hearth — alongside three descriptive notes (warmth, moisture, energy) and a daily pairing for breakfast, lunch, hydration, and a closing tip. The whole reading is a cultural cooking companion, not a ranking.

A Deep Journey is the longer culinary companion to your morning practice. It takes about three minutes and combines a short profile, a visual capture, and a small set of reflective questions about how the week has been feeling. In return you receive a set of meal suggestions across breakfast, lunch, dinner, and tea — each group with a few options to choose from — together with a tap-to-copy weekly grocery list and seasonal lifestyle notes. All ingredients are anchored to items you can pick up at Costco, Whole Foods, or Trader Joe's.

When the seasons turn, when your daily rhythm shifts, or simply when you want to slow down and look at your week ahead with more intention. Many readers do one Deep Journey at the start of each week.

The opening questions stay consistent, so your journal stays comparable over time. A small follow-up set of questions is drawn from a wider library and chosen for the day, so the experience does not feel repetitive.

They are culinary metaphors drawn from classical East Asian food traditions: Balanced Garden, Gentle Broth, Warming Hearth, Cooling Spring, Light Harvest, Fresh Greens, Flowing River, Open Sky, and Mindful Pantry. No pattern is "better" or "worse" — each one carries its own ingredient pairings, descriptive notes, and lifestyle suggestions.

Just as the seasons shift, your daily rhythm shifts too. A pattern change is simply a different note in your week — not a result you need to chase.

Your journal is presented as a karesansui-inspired grid — a quiet monthly canvas where each day shows its pattern as a small symbol. Tap any day to revisit that morning's full entry. The whole month sits in front of you like a single image to read.

Each culinary pattern carries traditional pairings from classical East Asian food literature. Zen Analyze translates those pairings into modern grocery items so you can cook with them today.

Yes. Zen Analyze is built around items you can pick up at Costco, Whole Foods, or Trader Joe's — and most major North American supermarkets carry the same staples.

Most pairings have natural substitutes. The app shows the underlying property — for example, "warming," "cooling," or "balanced" — so you can swap in something similar from your own pantry.

Yes. You can mention a few items you already have on hand, and the app will work with those instead of suggesting items from scratch.

Tap Sign in with Apple. Your account is created instantly using your Apple ID — there is no email or password to manage. You may choose to share or hide your email through Apple's private relay; either way works.

After you confirm those details a few times, the app locks them so your pattern journal stays comparable over time. If a baseline keeps shifting, the seasonal view loses meaning. If a real mistake was made before the lock, write to us and we will help.

Open Settings inside the app, or write to dev@zenanalyze.com. We remove your personal data and your reflection journal. Camera images were never persisted in the first place, so there is nothing to clean up there.

Zen Pro unlocks the full visual food journal experience: a complete set of meal suggestions across breakfast, lunch, dinner, and tea (each with a few options to choose from), a tap-to-copy weekly grocery list, two daily reflections per day, seasonal culinary insights, the deep cultural content library, and unlimited journal history.

Zen Pro is available as a monthly subscription, an annual subscription (the most popular option), and a one-time lifetime purchase.

Some experiences spend a small number of credits per use. New readers receive a starter set of credits. Zen Pro subscribers receive a generous monthly refill — enough to make daily use comfortable.

On your iPhone: Settings > Apple ID > Subscriptions > Zen Analyze > Cancel. Your access stays active until the end of the current billing period.

All purchases are processed by Apple, so refund requests go through Apple's own channels. Visit Apple's "Report a Problem" page or contact Apple Support directly.

Your image is sent to our cloud service for one purpose only: matching your daily observation to a culinary pairing pattern. It is stored under a random anonymous filename in transient cloud storage, and is purged automatically within roughly 48 hours. We never build a gallery and we never archive copies.

No. The app does not perform facial recognition, facial geometry mapping, biometric identification, or any kind of person identification. The on-screen guide simply helps you frame an oral cavity image quickly.

Only loosely. Zen Analyze uses your IP address to estimate the city you are in — no GPS access is requested. The signal is used to bring local seasonal context into your morning entry.

No. We do not sell, rent, or trade your data. Read the full Privacy Policy for the long version.

English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Spanish (Mexico), and French (Canada). The app follows your iPhone's language setting; you can switch at any time from your device's Settings.

Yes. Ingredient names and grocery references are localized so the suggestions stay practical wherever you are reading the app from.

Good morning light helps a lot. Follow the on-screen guide for positioning, take your time, and answer the reflection questions in the spirit of "how did I feel?" rather than "did I get it right?". Patterns shift naturally — there is no wrong answer.

Write to dev@zenanalyze.com. We try to respond within a couple of days.