Gut Bites MD

Christopher Damman, Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, University of Washington. Editor-in-Chief of Gut Bites MD.

Developed by a physician and parent, SmartBites is a best-in-class food rating app—powered by cutting-edge nutrition & microbiome science—that simply scans products, suggests smarter versions, and shows how foods combine to better fuel your energy and health.

As a university gastroenterologist who studies the gut microbiome, I’m often asked: What are the best things to eat for a healthy gut, body, and brain? And as parents of three hungry, growing girls, my wife and I face the daily challenge of preparing healthy meals the whole family will enjoy.

Over the years, through news articles, podcasts, academic lectures, television, and national radio, I’ve championed the key principles of how to eat to support your gut microbiome and overall health. Treat your gut right, and it will naturally produce molecules similar to the weight-loss drugs Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro along with dozens of other essential regulators of health that optimize your metabolism, immune system, and brain.

The advice boils down to something many of us already know but don’t follow often enough: eat less sugar, salt, and saturated fat—while also eating more foods rich in fiber, fermentation products, unsaturated fats, protein, potassium, and polyphenols. I call these powerful additions the F’s and P’s of healthy nutrition.

When The Chips are Down?

But where does all that advice actually lead? Healthier whole-food eating? Lightbulb moments for listeners or readers? Sometimes I wonder.

Admittedly, advice is easy to give and can be inspiring to hear… in the moment. But then life takes over. You’re tossing frozen waffles in the toaster before a big meeting, grabbing some snack bars in a rush to soccer practice, or heading out for date night while throwing chicken nuggets in the oven for the kids.

And when you’re in the grocery store? You’re not thinking about the F’s and P’s from a distant nutrition lecture. You’re just trying to get in and out with enough food to make it through the week, all while navigating a sea of packaging and confusing health claims that make it difficult to tell which foods really are better for you.

Color-Coding Quality

I know these realities all too well. That’s why I’m so excited to introduce SmartBites—the new standard, easy way to choose higher-quality foods—so you and family can have more energy throughout the day, feel happier, and perhaps even live longer without the burden of chronic health conditions.

I’ve spent the last two years distilling complex nutrition and microbiome science—including food’s F’s and P’s—into a simple, scientifically-validated scoring system that offers quick, intuitive feedback, so you know whether a food or meal supports your health or not. It’s called Nutrient Consume Score, or NCS for short.

With a simple barcode scan, SmartBites shows how nutrient-balanced and microbiome-friendly a food is using the 1-100, color-coded scale, and recommends similar but healthier options—what my family calls Smart-er-Bites.

Natural Nutrient Balance

There are plenty of food scanning nutrition rating apps on the market today. Many simply count calories and nutrients, while a few use food rating systems like Nutri-Score (NS) or NOVA classification (NC) to assess food quality.

But unlike other food scoring apps, SmartBites is powered by NCS, a first-in-class, microbiome- and ratio-based system with one of the strongest links to real health outcomes, like waist size, weight, and other key indicators of metabolic health.

At the heart of NCS is a principle as old as nutrition itself: balance. We’ve spent too long focusing on what’s “bad” (carbs, saturated fat, sodium) or “good” (fiber, unsaturated fat, potassium) instead of asking: Are we restoring the natural balance found in whole foods?

That’s what makes NCS so different. In addition to incorporating microbiome science, it’s built on nutrient ratios that reflect this balance:

• Carbohydrates to fiber
• Saturated to unsaturated fats
• Sodium to potassium

Food’s Due Process

This approach easily highlights whole foods, but also distinguishes healthier processed foods from less healthy ones, and arguably better than other scoring systems or apps.

You’ve probably heard a lot about ultra-processed foods lately – foods like chips and soda that often come in flashy packaging and that have refined ingredients with additives and disrupted nutrient balance. They’ve been linked to obesity, metabolic disease, cancer, and even Alzheimer’s.

Scoring tools like the NOVA classification and Nutri-Score try to categorize these foods, and do a great job at classifying processed vs. unprocessed foods, but they fall short in one key area: they’re not as good at separating the healthier processed options from the less healthy ones.

A Healthy App-etite

That’s where SmartBites excels. It uniquely uses NCS and nutrient ratios to effectively assess balance in all foods, whether whole, processed, or ultra-processed. The app’s BROWSE function easily identifies the healthiest options to help you make better choices without getting lost in the noise of confusing (and often misleading) marketing.

What’s more, a balance-based system allows you to see how food scores come together. This means you can use the SHOP function to build a healthier scoring overall shopping cart.

And it doesn’t mean giving up your favorite foods. Instead, it helps you learn how to pair them with other foods for nutritional balance and better health. Want brownies? Go for it, just use the EAT function to help guide you in moderating the portion and pairing it with an overall meal rich in fibers and good fats like those in avocado, nuts and beans.

Or better yet try the COOK function to make a healthier version of brownies swapping high-fiber almond or oat flour for white flour and low-saturated fat olive or avocado oil for butter.

Join the Movement

SmartBites NCS isn’t just another gimmicky nutrition app. It’s part of a science-based grassroots movement to empower you: the shopper, the parent, the cook to simply eat smarter. And coming soon, the app will also let you TRACK sleep, energy, mood, gut health, and weight to see how your food choices connect to your overall well-being.

So give it a try. SmartBites was born from the questions I hear from my patients—and from the everyday challenges I face at home. I’d love to hear what you think: what you love, and what could be better. Your feedback truly matters and will help shape what comes next! After all, listening is what inspired SmartBites in the first place.

Supports barcode scanning in the U.S., but text searches work worldwide, so you can start exploring now—no matter where you are. Available currently on iOS. Android to come soon.

Christopher Damman, Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, University of Washington

MD-authored gut health literature digests and first-in-class food quality app to power your microbiome.