Minthe vs Fig
Choose Fig if
- You need to know whether a specific packaged product fits your diet, in the shop.
- You already know your restriction and need help complying with it.
- You manage several restrictions at once, such as low FODMAP plus an allergy.
- You use Android. Minthe is iPhone only.
- You want restaurant and grocery coverage rather than symptom analysis.
Choose Minthe if
- You do not yet know which foods are actually causing your symptoms.
- You suspect you have cut out more than you needed to and want to reintroduce.
- You want to know which FODMAP group is yours rather than avoiding all six.
- You want symptoms, sleep, stress and cycle analysed together.
- You want a suspect confirmed with a controlled test.
What Fig does, and does well
Fig is a barcode scanner backed by a large product database. You configure your dietary needs, reportedly across more than 2,800 options covering low FODMAP, gluten free, vegan, low histamine, alpha-gal and many allergies, and it tells you which products fit, across a large number of grocery chains and some restaurants.
That is a genuinely hard problem, solved at real scale, with over a million users. Minthe does not attempt it and would not do it well. If your daily friction is reading ingredient labels in a supermarket aisle, Fig removes that friction and nothing in Minthe replaces it.
Fig also handles the stacked-restriction case properly. If you are low FODMAP and avoiding soy and watching added sugar, checking that by hand is miserable and Fig does it instantly.
The question Fig cannot answer
A scanner enforces a rule. It has no way of knowing whether the rule is right for you, because it never sees your symptoms.
This matters more than it first appears. The low FODMAP diet restricts six separate groups: fructans, GOS, lactose, excess fructose, sorbitol and mannitol. Most people react to only one or two of them. Somebody following full low FODMAP indefinitely with a scanner is probably avoiding four groups for no reason, and low FODMAP was never designed as a permanent diet.
Working out which group is actually yours is a different kind of task. It needs repeated, spaced exposures compared against your own baseline symptom rate, which is what Minthe's method does and what a barcode lookup structurally cannot.
Side by side
| Fig | Minthe | |
|---|---|---|
| What it answers | "Can I eat this product?" | "Which foods actually affect me?" |
| Platform | iOS and Android | iPhone only. No Android, no web. |
| Price | Free tier; Fig+ around $50/year | $6.99/month or $39.99/year. Elite $59.99/year. |
| Barcode product database | Very large, 100+ grocery chains | No. Label scanning reads the list in front of you. |
| Restaurant coverage | Yes, some chains | No |
| Stacked restrictions | Yes, 2,800+ dietary needs | No |
| Symptom logging | No | Yes, and it is the core of the product |
| Trigger identification | No | Published in full at /method. |
| Confirmation testing | No | Yes. Guided with-and-without trials with washout. |
| Reintroduction support | No | Yes, guided trials with washout |
Checked August 2026. "Not verified" means we could not confirm it from public sources, not that the feature is missing.
Using both, which is what we would actually suggest
There is no conflict here. A reasonable sequence looks like this.
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Find out what is actually yours
Structured testing against your own baseline, rather than adopting a restriction because it is the one people talk about. Our FODMAP food list is free and includes onset timing, which most references leave out.
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Then use a scanner to comply with the narrower rule
Once you know it is fructans rather than all six groups, a scanner becomes far more useful, because it is now enforcing something true.
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Reintroduce periodically
Tolerance changes, and restriction is a diagnostic phase rather than a destination.
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.
Frequently asked
Do Minthe and Fig compete?
Not really, and pretending otherwise would be misleading. Fig answers "can I buy this product", by scanning a barcode against a set of dietary rules you have configured. Minthe answers "which foods actually cause my symptoms", by analysing your own logged data. One tells you what fits a rule you already have; the other tells you what the rule should be. Using both is a sensible combination.
Which is better for the low FODMAP diet?
Fig, for the shopping half. Its barcode database across grocery stores is something Minthe does not attempt and would not do well, and if your immediate problem is standing in a supermarket wondering whether a sauce is safe, Fig solves that and Minthe does not. Minthe is more useful for the reintroduction half, where the question stops being what is low FODMAP and becomes which FODMAP group is actually yours.
Is Fig free?
Fig has a free tier and a paid tier at around $50 a year that adds unlimited scans, multiple profiles and restaurant coverage. It runs on both iPhone and Android. Minthe is iPhone only.
Can Fig tell me if a food is a trigger for me?
No, and it does not claim to. Fig checks products against dietary rules such as low FODMAP, gluten free or low histamine. It has no knowledge of your symptoms, so it cannot know whether the rule you selected is the right one for you. That distinction matters, because a lot of people follow a restriction for years without ever confirming it applies to them.
What if I do not know which diet to follow yet?
Then a scanner is premature, because a scanner enforces a rule you have already chosen. Working out which restriction is actually warranted comes first, and that means either a supervised elimination and reintroduction, or structured self-testing against your own baseline symptom rate.