Gut-friendly food scores for a fuller life.
Check how gentle a food might be — before you eat it.
Lower is gentler. Scores are modelled estimates for one normal serving, not medical advice — and how a food is prepared changes it, often a lot.
Got something bigger than one food? Check a whole recipe, scan a packet or photograph a plate.
Toots & Trots scores food for life with a J-pouch and other sensitive guts — ostomy, IBD, IBS. It flags the ingredients driving the score and suggests gentler swaps.
Modelled estimates, not medical advice. Everyone's gut is different.
Gentle Mac & Cheese
Every ingredient scored, then the whole dish. Shape and word as well as colour.
How you cook it changes everything
The same onion, prepared three ways:
The rest of the toolkit
Six more ways to work out what a meal is likely to do — and what to put in its place.
Three ways we score every food
Gentle on your gut. Good for you. Still a joy to eat. Eating “green” isn't the whole story — the gentlest foods aren't always the most nourishing, so we score all three and let you balance them.
Gentle
the GASP scoreHow easy a food is likely to be on your gut — gas, irritation, looseness and roughage. Lower is gentler.
Nourishing
the Health scoreHow nutrient-dense it is, shown in stars. Because gentle isn't the same as healthy — white rice is gentle, but you still need balance.
Tasty
the Flavour scoreHow much flavour it brings, from bland to bam. Because a fuller life means food you actually enjoy, not a beige plate.
Inside the Gentle score
The GASP Score weighs four things that tend to matter most for a sensitive gut. Here's how white rice, boiled, scores on each axis:
Gas
fermentation, bloating and wind
Agitation
irritation and stimulant-driven urgency
Stool-loosening / Speed
looser, faster, more urgent output
Particle load
coarse, undigested residue
Browse foods by score
Every food, scored for how gentle it's likely to be — lower is gentler. Here's a gentler and a harder pick from across the food groups. Browse the full list — by category and searchable — on the foods page.
Gentler foods
Recipes
Recipes, scored for your pouch.
Original Toots & Trots recipes, each rated with the GASP Score — with the harsher ingredients flagged and gentler swaps built in. Browse by meal, cuisine, dietary need or gentleness. Got a recipe from somewhere else? Check its score too.
Garlic-Butter Mashed Potato
1.6/ 10Smooth, buttery mash with a gentle garlic note from infused oil — no raw garlic, no onion, just comfort. The side that goes with almost everything.
Serves 4 · 30 min
Buttered Garlic Stock Rice
1.6/ 10Fluffy rice cooked in onion-free stock with garlic oil and finished with butter — a savoury, gentle base that turns plain rice into something you'd choose.
Serves 4 · 25 min
Potato, Carrot & Ham Soup
1.9/ 10A smooth, comforting soup built on peeled potato and carrot with lean ham — no onion or garlic bulb, gentle on a sensitive gut.
Serves 4
Our story
“This started as my own way to get through the hardest weeks after pouch surgery — a way to score my food and calm things down. It helped me enough that I wanted to put it in other people's hands.”
— Robin, who lives with a J-pouch
Read our story →Meal prep & flavour prep
Onion-free stock, infused oils, batch-cooked basics — ways to make gentler food still taste like food.
Explore meal prep →Who it's for
Made for adults living with a J-pouch, especially the unpredictable months after takedown — with guidance for ostomy, IBD and IBS too.
Who it's for →Common questions
Is a low score a “safe” food?
No — it’s a gentler estimate, not a verdict. There are no good or bad foods, and everyone’s gut is different.
Does cooking change the score?
Often, yes. Boiling, peeling, draining or infusing can all make the same food gentler — we score the preparation, not just the food.
Is this medical advice?
No. It's a modelled guide to experiment with, alongside your own medical team — not a diagnosis or a treatment.
Missing a food? Got a question?
Tell us what to add or fix. We read everything, and your suggestions help shape the scores.