How to get the most out of the Monash University FODMAP Diet App

We have put together a comprehensive tutorial for the Monash University FODMAP Diet App to ensure you get the most out of all the app functions!

Search function

Our search function enables app users to look for specific foods within the app’s “Food Guide” so you don’t need to scroll through the categories to find what you are looking for. To find and use the search bar, follow these simple steps:

Apple

• Upon opening the “Food Guide”, the search bar should appear at the top of the screen. Simply tap on the search bar and the keyboard should appear to begin searching
• When entering a category within the “Food Guide”, the search bar may become hidden. To use the search bar, swipe the screen downwards and it will appear from the top blue bar.

Android

• Once inside the “Food Guide”, a magnifying glass icon will appear in the top blue bar of the screen. Tap on this icon and the search bar will open, ready for use.

Diary Functions

Tracking your journey through the FODMAP diet is important to help you understand the effect that various foods (and their FODMAPs present) can have on your IBS symptoms. Our app contains a “Diary” function with various options to help you keep track along the way. To access these options:

• Tap on “Diary” on the app home screen
• Tap the “+” icon on the top right of the screen.

A menu will appear at the bottom of the screen with six symbols. These options include:

Reintroduction

To assist those in Step 2: Reintroduction, the app contains a “Reintroduction” function within the diary to help you select the foods, and the required quantities, to complete this step. To use this function:

Apple

1. Tap on the “Diary” option in the app home screen
2. Select the “+” icon in the top right corner of the diary screen
3. Tap the “Reintroduction” symbol on the top right of the pop-up menu
4. Under “Select reintroduction type”, tap on “Click here to select” - this will open up all the FODMAP types for reintroduction. Select which FODMAP you are reintroducing and select “Done”
5. Under “Select food and quantity”, tap on “Click here to select” - this will open up options of foods to use for the selected FODMAP reintroduction. Select which food you would like to use, then choose the specific quantity from the right side, depending on which day of reintroduction you are on. Then select “Done”.
6. Once all selections are complete, tap “Save” and it will appear in your diary.
7. Repeat this for each day in the 3 day reintroduction of this FODMAP, then repeat for each FODMAP you challenge

Android

1. Tap on the “Diary” option in the app home screen
2. Select the “+” icon in the top right corner of the diary screen
3. Tap the “Reintroduction” symbol on the top right of the pop-up menu
4. Tap on “Select reintroduction type” - this will open up a list of all the FODMAP types for reintroduction. Select which FODMAP you are reintroducing.
5. Tap on “Select food” - this will open up a list of options of foods to use for the selected FODMAP reintroduction. Select which food you would like to use.
6. Tap on “Select day” - this will open a list of days and quantities of the chosen food. Select one depending on which day of reintroduction you are on.
7. Once all selections are complete, tap “Save” and it will appear in your diary.
8. Repeat this for each day in the 3 day reintroduction of this FODMAP, then repeat for each FODMAP you challenge

You can learn more about reintroduction using the diary and our tips for reintroduction.

Diary Export

To allow your dietitian to help look at your progress through the FODMAP diet, you can export a report from your diary which captures all the information you have entered. To do this, open the “Diary” in your app and follow the following prompts:

Apple

1. Select the “share” icon on the top right of the screen.
2. From the pop-up, select the date you would like the report to start from and end by tapping on the dates and scrolling through the day, month and year.
3. Tap “Preview” to view the generated report.
4. If you are happy with the report, tap on the “share” icon on the top right of the screen and an email template will appear.
5. Add who you would like the email the report to in the “To:” section and tap the blue arrow on the top right to send the email.

PLEASE NOTE: In order to share the diary, the Apple Mail app must be the default mailing app set on your Apple Device.

Android

1. Select the “share” icon on the top right of the screen.
2. From the pop-up, select the date you would like the report to start from and end by tapping on the dates and scrolling through the day, month and year.
3. Tap “Preview” to view the generated report.
4. If you are happy with the report, tap on the “+” icon on the top right of the screen and an option to print the report will appear.
5. To save a PDF of the report, tap the yellow PDF download icon at the top of the screen.
6. This will save it to your phone's files. From here you can open your emails and select them as an attachment from your device.

Guides

To keep you supported during your FODMAP journey, we have included a few guides to provide some information on the steps of the FODMAP diet and the functionality of the app. These are good to refer to if you are new to the app and/or diet, or are in between dietitian appointments but need some reminding. These guides include:

Filters

Once you have determined which FODMAPs you are sensitive to from step 2 of the diet, you can enable filtering of the app’s food guide to tailor the traffic lights to your personalised FODMAP diet. To use the filters:

• Tap on the “Food Guide” option in the app home screen.
• In the top right corner click on the “Filter” icon.
• Select “Enable Filtering” and this will show the FODMAP subgroups.
• Slide the bar to set your sensitivities,
  • If you can tolerate a FODMAP, leave these with a green, 'happy face',
  • If you cannot tolerate a FODMAP, move the slider to the right until it turns red (unhappy face).
  • If you have found that you can tolerate moderate serves of a FODMAP, set the slider to amber (neutral face).

Once enabled, the filter changes the traffic lights in the food guide. You will no longer see the larger traffic lights that indicate the food's overall rating. The smaller, serve-specific traffic lights will change to now reflect the FODMAP filters you have enabled.

Finding country-specific foods

Within the food guide, you may notice that some foods contain flags in the listing. For foods that are part of the Monash Low FODMAP Certification Program, these flags represent the country where this food has been sourced for testing and where it can be purchased from. For general food guide listings, the flags represent the country that these foods were sourced from for testing.

There are two ways that you can find food from specific countries within the food guide:

Food Guide Country Categories

When you open the Food Guide, scroll past the food categories and find the list of countries. Here you can go into the country you are looking for and find all the certified foods in that country.

Country Filter

You can turn this on by going to the filter icon and turning on "Select Countries". Tap on the country you are looking for and the app will refresh to show you only generic foods and the selected countries' foods in the categories

• • Please note: Country filtering applies when searching and to all categories in the food guide except the “Low FODMAP Certified Foods” category.

App Language

The Monash University FODMAP Diet app is available in a range of languages, which we are working to expand over time. To change the language within the app, follow these steps:

Apple

• Open settings in your device.
• Scroll down through your apps and select “FODMAP”.
• Click on “Language”.
• Select your preferred language.

PLEASE NOTE: If “Language” does not appear in the FODMAP settings, please read how to enable languages on your device from this blog

Android

• Tap on the settings in the app home screen (cog icon, top right corner).
• Tap on “Language”.
• Make your selection of the preferred app language.
• The app will automatically change to reflect the selected language.

Clear Cache

Please see our blog on updating the app for further details on this.

More Help

Other details that aren’t covered here may be found in our App Help FAQ.