Guides

By Jason · Founder of Minthe · Updated September 2026

Specific answers to the questions general health sites tend to skip. Every guide states a position, cites its sources, and says where the evidence runs out.

New here? Start with gut health basics. What the term means, what has evidence behind it, and what is sold to you.

Free tools and references

• Symptom self-check. A red-flag screen, then the IBS-SSS severity score used in clinical trials, with a summary to take to your doctor. Nothing is stored or sent.
• FODMAP food list. 349 foods with their FODMAP group, load, and how long symptoms usually take to appear. Searchable, no sign-up.
• Hidden trigger decoder. Paste an ingredients list and see the FODMAPs, the irritants and the E-numbers in it, plus the umbrella terms that can legally hide onion and garlic.
• Elimination schedule planner. Turns the low FODMAP elimination and challenge structure into a calendar with real dates, washout days included.
• Eating window calculator. Your eating window, overnight gap and average spacing between meals, with an honest account of how little the evidence supports any target.
• Bristol stool chart. All seven types, what each says about transit time, and how the scale is used to classify IBS.
• Stool color chart. The three colors that need a doctor, and the many that are just food.

Diet

• Low FODMAP reintroduction, step by step. The phase nobody explains, and the one that gets your diet back. Which food tests which group, and the eight mistakes that waste the exercise.

Free printables

Five PDFs you can print, photocopy and hand to a dietitian. No email, no signup.

• All five printable sheets. The 349-food low FODMAP list with onset timing, a 7-day meal plan with shopping list, the Bristol stool chart, a food and symptom diary sheet, and a reintroduction planner.
• A 7-day low FODMAP meal plan. A realistic week for the elimination phase, plus the three things a meal plan cannot tell you.

Choosing an app

Four roundups, each sorted on a different axis, and eight head-to-head comparisons. All of them name the apps that beat Minthe, because a comparison that finds no fault with its own author is not worth reading.

Roundups

• The best bloating and IBS tracker apps, compared. Six apps sorted by which problem you actually have.
• The best IBS apps, sorted by what they actually do. Learn a protocol, treat the gut-brain axis, or measure your triggers. Three different jobs.
• The best low FODMAP apps, judged on their data. Where each app's numbers come from, and why we recommend a competitor here.
• The best food diary apps, compared by effort. Adherence beats analysis, so this one sorts on how much work each asks of you.

Switching from another app

• Cara Care alternatives. Six apps sorted by the reason people actually leave it.
• Monash FODMAP alternatives. The free lookup options, and when to just buy Monash.
• Bearable alternatives. What a general symptom tracker cannot do once the gut is the main problem.

Two other apps, compared

Comparisons where Minthe is not one of the two apps. Useful if you are choosing between them.

• Monash FODMAP vs Cara Care. A $7.99 reference book against a subscription coach. Not substitutes.
• Nerva vs Monash FODMAP. Treat the gut-brain axis or change the diet? Two theories of the same symptoms.
• Bearable vs mySymptoms. Breadth against depth, between the two big analytical trackers.

Head to head

• Minthe vs Monash FODMAP. The reference standard, at $7.99 once. What a traffic light cannot tell you.
• Minthe vs Nerva. Treat the gut-brain axis, or find out whether food is involved at all.
• Minthe vs Cara Care. Program and dietitian, versus statistics and testing.
• Minthe vs Bearable. Track everything, or track the gut properly.
• Minthe vs mySymptoms. The closest comparison on the site.
• Minthe vs Tummy. Is a bloat score actually useful? Why we refuse to ship one.
• Minthe vs Bowelle. Free and simple, versus paid and analytical.
• Minthe vs Fig. Grocery scanner or trigger finder? They do different jobs.

Gut tests

• IBS vs IBD. One damages the bowel and needs treatment, the other does not. The cheap stool test that separates them.
• IBS-C vs IBS-D. What the subtype changes, and the commonly missed cause behind each.
• Which gut tests are actually worth it? Five with real evidence, two without, and the cutoffs used to read each result.
• Food intolerance tests: what actually works. There is no general-purpose intolerance test. What is validated, what it costs, and how to get it.
• Food intolerance vs food allergy. One can kill you and one cannot. Different tests, different management, and celiac is neither.
• Are IgG food sensitivity tests accurate? Six allergy societies say no. Why IgG4 indicates tolerance rather than intolerance.
• Are gut microbiome tests worth it? Replicate samples from one stool were classified both healthy and unhealthy.

Overgrowths, biofilms and other theories

• SIBO and methane overgrowth. The overgrowth that is genuinely testable, and why methane changes the whole plan.
• Gut biofilms. Better evidenced than sceptics admit, and still no support for the supplements sold on the back of it.
• Candida overgrowth. Why the spit test is meaningless, and why the diet still helps some people.
• Leaky gut. A real measurable phenomenon and an unvalidated diagnosis, separated.
• Can gut bacteria make you crave sugar? Real research, mostly in mice, and not the claim you were sold.

Supplements

• Supplements for bloating, rated. What has trial evidence, what does not, and why personal impressions are so unreliable here. No affiliate links.
• Do probiotics help bloating? The AGA declined to recommend them for IBS, and the inulin in your capsule may be the problem.

Talking to your doctor

• When bloating needs a doctor, not an app. The symptoms that mean stop tracking and get assessed.
• Questions to ask your doctor. The four that change what happens next.
• What a food diary should show your doctor. Why the days nothing happened are the ones that matter.
• Preparing for a gastroenterology appointment. What to bring, and why not to change your diet first.

Symptoms and patterns

• IBS, mornings and the working day. Why urgency clusters before the commute. Which adjustments are worth asking for.
• Traveling when your gut does not cooperate. Routine, sleep and timing change more than the food does. Cabin pressure is real too.
• The wrong fiber can make IBS worse. Two kinds of fiber, close to opposite effects, one blanket piece of advice.
• The cleaning wave between meals. Real physiology. Where the snacking advice built on it runs ahead of the evidence.
• Does eating fast actually bloat you? The swallowed-air explanation is half right, though not the half people think.
• A1 versus A2 milk. If lactase pills never worked, lactose may not be the problem.
• What else gets called IBS? Which exclusions should have been done before the label, and how to ask which ones were.
• Why do my symptoms seem to follow no rules? Same food, different day, different outcome. What a threshold effect looks like from the inside.
• Bloated by bread but fine with pasta? Why that pattern points at fructans rather than gluten.
• Stress and gut symptoms. The mechanism is physical, not imagined. Also why stress quietly ruins food-trigger analysis.
• Eating out with IBS. Onion and garlic are in almost every sauce. Which cuisines are easier and what to actually ask.
• Bloating and your menstrual cycle. Why it arrives before your period, eases when it starts, and why cycle phase ruins food testing.
• Bloating and the afternoon slump. Why a 3pm reaction often traces back to breakfast.
• Still feel like you need to go? Why a normal stool can leave you feeling unfinished, and why more fiber often makes it worse.

How Minthe works

• The method, in full. Base rates, risk ratios, confidence intervals, and what the method cannot do.
• How Minthe works. Log, notice, test, know.

Minthe is a wellness and self-tracking tool, not a medical device. It does not diagnose or treat any condition and isn't a substitute for professional medical advice. If you have red-flag symptoms such as blood in your stool, unintentional weight loss, difficulty swallowing, persistent vomiting or a fever alongside gut symptoms, see a clinician rather than tracking them.