What is the Molecules space for?

The level below the categories, and above all what is missing.

The 16 categories answer “have I rotated my families?”. The Molecules space answers the question one level down: what have I not eaten. It does not say “you ate starchy foods”, it says “no arabinoxylan for eleven days” or “mucilages: nothing this month”.

Why go down to this level. “Resistant starch” covers four different things: RS1 trapped in a whole grain, RS2 of the raw granule, RS3 that appears as a cooked starchy food cools, RS4 made in a factory. “Polyphenols” covers the anthocyanins of berries, the lignans of flax and the ellagitannins of pomegranate — three families that different bacteria transform. Rotating the categories does not guarantee rotating what is inside them.

How a molecule is counted. It is carried either by a plant, when the species contains it whatever the preparation (the lutein of spinach), or by a category item, when it is the state that creates or preserves it (the RS3 of “Chilled potato”, the mucilage of “Soaked flaxseeds”). A note credits the union of the two. Consequence: an entry that counts neither in a category nor in a plant — chicken, sugar, salt, water — brings no molecule.

Major or secondary source. Only a major source resets the counter: it is the one whose normal serving really brings the molecule. Secondary sources appear on the card without ticking anything — same rule as for the categories, where a few pine nuts in a pesto do not tick nuts.

The bacterial pairing is only written on the eight molecules where it is solidly documented. The clearest is that of ellagitannins: without Gordonibacter, pomegranate gives no urolithin, and about 40% of people produce none or little. It is the reminder that the food is not always enough — you also need the microbiota that goes with it.

As everywhere in the app, these rhythms are rotation markers, not nutritional needs. No figure on this page says you are lacking something in the medical sense: it says a substrate has not come through for a while.