How SafeBelly answers “Can I eat this?”

SafeBelly takes a food you search, scan or photograph, checks its ingredients against the conditions and allergens you chose, and gives you one of three answers: “Yes, you can eat this.”, “Eat this with care.” or “No, avoid this.” Each answer says why, in plain language, so you can decide with the full picture rather than a color on a screen.

It's built for the moment in the aisle, at the table or in the kitchen when you need to know quickly, and for the slower work of learning what your body tolerates over time.

When you set up SafeBelly, you choose the conditions and sensitivities you live with. Everything after that is personalized to that profile, and you can change it at any time.

• Gut conditions: IBS, SIBO, endometriosis-related gut symptoms and general bloating use low-FODMAP scoring. See eating with IBS.
• Celiac disease: gluten is checked strictly, including the less obvious sources covered in hidden gluten.
• Intolerances: lactose intolerance, fructose malabsorption and histamine intolerance.
• Other digestive conditions: reflux and GERD, functional dyspepsia, IBD, functional constipation and functional diarrhea, and eosinophilic esophagitis (the six common food triggers).
• Prediabetes: an advisory “eat with care” on carb-dense or high-sugar servings, never a hard no.
• Allergens: the 14 major allergens, checked on every food whether or not you have other conditions selected.

There are three ways to ask. Search works for whole foods and common dishes. A barcode scan pulls the ingredient list from the package. A photo of a plate names the foods it can see so each one can be checked; photo checks only run when you tap, never in the background.

Before anything else, the ingredients go through a single condition engine that applies the rules for each condition and allergen in your profile. The strictest result wins: if one condition says no and another says yes, the answer is no.

For FODMAP-based conditions, dose matters: many foods are well tolerated in a small serving and trigger symptoms in a large one. That's why SafeBelly shows the answer at small, typical and large portions instead of a single verdict. The background is in FODMAP portion sizes.

Allergens and celiac disease are different. There's no safe portion of an allergen you react to, so those answers don't change with serving size.

Food data is messy. Ingredient lists say “spices” or “natural flavors”, databases have gaps, and photos can be ambiguous. When SafeBelly can't confirm a food is suitable, it says so and leans toward eat with care or no. It will never turn uncertainty into a yes.

Allergen checks run on every food, every time, and are designed so that a miss is treated as a safety issue, not a rounding error.

Answers are a starting point. Your own tolerance is the real goal, especially with IBS, where most people can eat more widely after working through the phases described in low-FODMAP phases explained.

• Diary: log meals with or without amounts, and tap how your belly feels afterwards.
• Guided Journey: move through elimination, reintroduction and maintenance, with answers that adjust as you learn your tolerances.
• Export: download your diary and symptoms as a CSV to share with your doctor or dietitian. See keeping a food and symptom diary.

Your conditions, diary and symptoms are health data, and they're treated that way: encrypted, never sold, never shared with advertisers, and never sent to third-party analytics. When you photograph a meal, the photo is used only to name the foods in it; your conditions aren't sent with it. You can export everything or delete your account at any time.