A sensitive gut: where to start?

Bloating, cramps, an unpredictable transit: the order in which to use the app.

The app diagnoses nothing, and that is not a flaw: nobody can tell from the outside which food bothers you. What it can do is help you observe what your own notes show, in four steps that follow one another.

1. Hide what bothers people most often. On the Feeling page, tick “High FODMAPs” — and, if you already know, alliums, crucifers, legumes… Hidden foods disappear from search and targets without touching the journal: the app stops suggesting them, it does not blame you for avoiding them.

2. Log how you feel — and the bowl. On the Feeling page, every day: your digestive feeling, the symptom if it has a name (bloating, cramps, reflux, nausea), and the stool type on the Bristol scale. Optional, ten seconds, and it is the raw material of the next step.

3. Read the leads. After twelve days of feelings, the “Leads” section of the Feeling page crosses your journal with how you felt, symptom by symptom, and only speaks when the gap cannot be put down to chance. They are leads, not verdicts: they cannot identify an intolerance. If one keeps coming up, talk to a doctor or a dietitian before cutting out a food for good.

4. Cook rather than give up. Most foods that bother you do so less when prepared differently: legumes soaked overnight, water discarded, cooked long and in gradually rising amounts; starches cooked then cooled; crucifers cooked rather than raw; garlic and onion infused in oil, since their fructans do not pass into fat. Each food's card, and the “What builds up” card in the Molecules space, say what applies to it.

Pain that lasts, blood, weight loss: that is no longer a question for an app. See a doctor.