Can I use AI chatbots to develop a low FODMAP meal plan?

I recently noticed a trend on social media for posts about using ChatGPT to develop meal plans. I wondered if it, or other Generative AI tools, could quickly provide a meal plan that is tasty, varied and most importantly has recipes that are actually low in FODMAPs.

I last tried using an AI chatbot to help write a science-based blog around 12 months ago. I found that the output included inconsistencies, and was not up to date. I wondered if things had improved.

In all, I gave AI chatbots three goes at producing something useful. I first tried twice with Microsoft CoPilot (a tool integrated with Microsoft edge based on OpenAI's GPT model.), once with an initial prompt and follow up questions, and once with a single long prompt. And then I tried with ChatGPT itself with the longer, fully comprehensive prompt. Chat GPT is supposed to have more up to date AI models than CoPilot.

Why multiple goes with CoPilot? - well the first time around it ignored my request for recipes and just gave a meal plan, so I asked for the recipes and then added a further prompt clarifying the number of serves for each recipe, so I could work out it the recipes really were low FODMAP. I wondered if it had got ‘confused’ between prompts and wanted to give it another chance.

Here is the full prompt that I used: “Please could you draw up a 5-day meal plan for me, including recipes for different breakfasts, lunches and dinners that are all low FODMAP. I am a 63kg woman with irritable bowel syndrome. Please ensure that all the meals meet the criteria for the exclusion phase of the low FODMAP diet and provide all the recipes for me to prepare and indicate how many people each recipe serves. Thanks”

So what were the results?

The Positives

New ideas

Many of the dishes were indeed low FODMAP. And the AI chatbots did give me a couple of new ideas for low FODMAP dishes that I hadn’t thought of before and now want to try.

If you are struggling to come up with new ideas, this could be useful…

My favourite suggestion was an omelette with spinach, feta and toasted pine nuts from CoPilot and I will (tweak it) and give it a try.

However, I would suggest that our recipe page with close to 100 different recipes could give you many more new and enticing options.

Super simple

If you like simple recipes with minimal ingredients, then the recipes produced by CoPilot and ChatGPT fit the bill. Each recipe typically had only 4 or 5 ingredients.

This could be useful if you are cooking your own meals separately from the rest of the family and want something quick and easy to prepare.

But see below for my view on this.

Good tips and swaps

It was good to see some good pick-ups in the lists – e.g. specifying low FODMAP, gluten-free and sourdough bread; use of garlic-infused oil, not fresh garlic; and stipulating lactose-free milk and lactose-free yoghurt.

When it comes to carbohydrate sources, they included gluten-free spaghetti, quinoa and rice, rather than regular wheat-based pasta.

The Negatives

FODMAP fails

Let’s start with the big one - Many of the recipes simply weren’t low FODMAP.  AI was confidently wrong - repeatedly. This is very frustrating, especially for people new to the low FODMAP diet, who are unlikely to spot the errors.

The recipes tended to be given with the measurements in cups, in contrast to the Monash app, which gives amounts in grams, which made checking FODMAP content tricky. But even being generous, I found some real clangers from both CoPilot and ChatGPT.

Disappointingly, the meal plans included examples of recipes with variously excessive amounts of red capsicum, broccoli, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, ripe banana, asparagus and more. It seems that the Chatbots, like many novice fodmappers are confused by the fact that a food can be low or high in fodmaps depending on quantity.

Borderline FODMAPs

Some recipes were just on the right side of low FODMAP boundaries, for example an Almond Flour and Banana Muffin from CoPilot probably comes in with just about green (low FODMAP) amounts of almond flour and ripe bananas, given the recipe makes six muffins, but they would be small muffins., and eating a second one would tip you over. This taps into another problem…

Not enough food!

Some of the lunches and dinners were seriously lacking in the carbohydrates needed to power me through my day. For example, CoPilot suggests the following dinner dishes: Grilled Chicken with Steamed Carrots and Zucchini, Baked Salmon with a Side of Roasted Bell Peppers and ChatGPT came up with Baked Cod with a Side of Green Beans - no rice or potatoes in sight. ChatGPT also tended to make the lunches light, e.g., a simple Tuna, Red Capsicum and Spinach Salad.

I would also liked to have seen a bit more fibre. The vegetables provide fibre, and also the occasional oats and chia seeds that popped up in each list, but I would have like to have seen more nuts, seeds, kiwis and oranges to help with regularity and overall gut health. If you want to know more about the benefits of different types of fibre, check out our Best Ever Poop Plan.

Pre-prepared ingredients without supplier information

Co-pilot in particular, tended to include ready-made dressings and sauces in its recipes, such as stir-fry sauce, lactose-free Caesar salad dressing and Low FODMAP baked beans, without any indication of suppliers. Low FODMAP stir-fry sauces are available from Fody Foods Co. and Fodmapped For You, and Fody also makes a low FODMAP Caesar Salad Dressing, but many dairy-free Caesar salad dressings have garlic. I also haven’t been able to find any low FODMAP baked beans option.

Similarly, ChatGPT suggested low FODMAP bread and wraps. Low FODMAP wraps are available in Australia from Simson’s Pantry and low FODMAP bread is available from Bakers Delight, but a slice of wholemeal bread, or 2 slices of sourdough bread are also low in FODMAPs and would work fine instead.

Finally, lack of flavour and flare

For me, the dishes are too simple and a throw back to the classic meat and two veg dinners from the 1950’s.  Sure, that makes them easy to prepare, but it leaves them a chore to eat. For example, the CoPilot dinner suggestion of Grilled Chicken with Steamed Carrots and Zucchini is simply boring. It needs some herbs or spices to add flavour. Our gut microbes also like a variety of multi-coloured fruit and vegetables, herbs and spices.

There are other dishes that I simply think would just not be nice, for example this ChatGPT breakfast: Overnight Chia Pudding with Strawberries. It is a mix of only

• 2 tbsp chia seeds

• 1/2 cup lactose-free milk or almond milk

• 2-3 fresh strawberries, sliced

It really needs a sweetener like maple syrup and/or a little cinnamon to make it palatable. Check out our Strawberry Chia Pots for something more exciting.

Key take aways

• AI Chat Bots like ChatGPT can’t be trusted to produce reliably low FODMAP meal plans. It gets the basics right – no garlic, lactose-free milk, etc., but not the subtleties around low FODMAP serving sizes of common fruit and vegetables.

• You could use it for new ideas and then adapt the recipes with reference to the Monash or Fodmap Friendly Apps.

• The recipes are very simple, but lacking in sophisticated flavour or interesting ingredients.

A better way

If you want an easy way to try or re-try the low FODMAP diet, check out the 10 day meal plan in our Good Gut Challenge – we promise it includes reliably low FODMAP dishes that are way more exciting than the cheese and tomato on toast suggested by Chat GPT.

It includes our Monash certified low FODMAP shakes, which are an excellent source of low FODMAP protein, fibre, and probiotics.

Blog written by: Noisy Guts co-founder Dr Mary Webberley. Mary has a background in biology, with two degrees from the University of Cambridge and post-doctoral research experience.