Our approach to nutrition

Last updated: 10 October 2026

Eating well comes down to two things: food with real nutritional value, and eating that way consistently, week after week. Bolus is built to give you both.

Built around your life

The most nutritious meal in the world won't help if it takes too long to make or isn't something you enjoy. So Bolus plans around the things that decide whether you'll actually eat it:

• the foods and meals you prefer
• meals that have worked for you before
• how much time you have
• your routines
• variety across your week
• your goals

The more you use it, the better your plans fit you, while still following the framework. Two people won't get the same plan, and yours won't stay the same forever.

Bolus also looks at the pattern across your week rather than judging every single meal, so there's room for the food you love.

Quick, easy and from your usual supermarket

Eating well only sticks if it's easy to keep doing, so Bolus meals are built to be practical on a normal weeknight.

• Quick when you need it. Every meal shows how long it takes to prepare, and you choose how much time you have for each meal on each day. A busy Tuesday dinner stays quick, while a relaxed Sunday can take longer.
• Ingredients you'll actually find. Meals use everyday ingredients from UK supermarkets, with shopping lists and pack sizes to match. No special "diabetic" foods needed.
• Easy to shop for. Bolus helps you buy everything from your usual supermarket, in store or online, with your list grouped by aisle.
• Nothing wasted when plans change. Swap a meal or eat out, and Bolus reshapes the rest of the week around the ingredients you've already bought.

What goes into your plan

Plenty of fibre

Vegetables, fruit, wholegrains, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds. Bolus works towards the UK recommendation of around 30g of fibre a day, looked at across your week rather than meal by meal.

Better fats

Bolus focuses on the type of fat rather than making everything low-fat, favouring unsaturated fats and keeping saturated fat in check across your week.

Protein through the day

Good sources of protein spread across your meals, without chasing an identical number every time.

Quality carbohydrates

There's no single right carb intake for everyone with diabetes, so Bolus doesn't set one. It favours better-quality sources such as wholegrains, beans and pulses, fruit, vegetables and dairy, and shows the carbs in every meal so you have the number when you need it.

Sensible on salt

Bolus keeps an eye on salt against the UK guideline of no more than 6g a day, across your overall pattern, so one saltier day isn't a problem.

Real food, not rules

A varied, plant-rich way of eating, with fewer foods high in saturated fat, salt and free sugars. Bolus doesn't write a food off just because it's processed: frozen vegetables, tinned beans and wholemeal bread all earn their place.

No calorie counting

If losing weight is one of your goals, Bolus estimates your energy needs and plans around them in the background. You'll see the calories for each meal, but you won't have to spend your day counting them.

Gut health, plants and diabetes

Your gut is home to trillions of bacteria, and researchers are increasingly interested in how they relate to diabetes. It's a fast-moving area, but a lot of it is still early, so here's an honest picture of where the science stands.

What's well supported: fibre

Gut bacteria feed on fibre, and the case for eating more of it is strong in its own right. A review of trials and long-term studies in people with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and prediabetes (Reynolds et al., PLOS Medicine, 2020) linked higher fibre intake with better blood glucose and cholesterol measures, and with a lower risk of early death. That's a big part of why fibre sits at the heart of the Bolus framework.

What's promising, but needs more research

• People with type 2 diabetes tend to have a different mix of gut bacteria, including fewer of the bacteria that ferment fibre into a compound called butyrate. But some of the differences seen in earlier studies turned out to be caused by metformin rather than diabetes itself (Forslund et al., Nature, 2015), and it's not yet clear whether these changes help cause type 2 diabetes or follow from it.
• In one trial, people with type 2 diabetes who ate a diet rich in a wide variety of fibres saw greater improvements in blood glucose control than a comparison group, and the improvements tracked with particular fibre-fermenting bacteria (Zhao et al., Science, 2018). It involved 43 people over 12 weeks, so it needs repeating in larger studies.
• In type 1 diabetes, researchers are studying whether gut bacteria play a part in the immune process behind the condition. Trials so far, such as faecal transplants in people newly diagnosed (de Groot et al., Gut, 2021), are small and experimental.

What isn't supported yet

Trials of probiotic supplements in type 2 diabetes have mostly been small and short, with mixed results, so there isn't good enough evidence to recommend them. There's also no agreed definition yet of what a "healthy" gut microbiome looks like, for people with diabetes or anyone else.

Where 30 plants a week fits in

Bolus encourages you to eat 30 different plants a week, from vegetables and fruit to wholegrains, beans, nuts and seeds.

The number comes from the American Gut Project (McDonald et al., mSystems, 2018), which found that people eating more than 30 different plants a week had more diverse gut bacteria than people eating 10 or fewer. It's an observational finding, so it shows a link rather than cause and effect.

We use it because the foods that get you to 30 are the same fibre-rich foods the stronger evidence already supports. It's a simple way to build more variety into your week, whatever the gut research goes on to show.

Time in range

If you connect a CGM, Bolus shows the share of your readings between 4 and 10 mmol/L. That's the target range from the International Consensus on Time in Range (Battelino et al., Diabetes Care, 2019) for adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, which sets 3.9 to 10.0 mmol/L and is commonly rounded to 4 to 10 in the UK. Some people have a different range, including during pregnancy and some older or higher risk adults, so check with your care team.

Your readings sit next to what you ate so you can look at the two together. They're for your own review: they don't change what goes in your plan, and Bolus doesn't give dosing or treatment guidance.

Where our approach comes from

The Bolus nutrition framework was developed by a specialist diabetes dietitian. It draws on established UK guidance and evidence, including the NHS Eatwell Guide, recommendations from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), UK Dietary Reference Values and evidence-based nutrition guidance from Diabetes UK. Key sources include:

• Public Health England, The Eatwell Guide (2016)
• Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, Salt and Health (2003)
• Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, Dietary Reference Values for Energy (2011)
• Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, Carbohydrates and Health (2015)
• Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, Saturated Fats and Health (2019)
• Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, Lower Carbohydrate Diets for Adults with Type 2 Diabetes (2021)
• Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, guidance on expressing energy, fat and carbohydrate recommendations (2025)
• Diabetes UK evidence-based nutrition guidelines for the prevention and management of diabetes (Dyson et al., Diabetic Medicine, 2018)
• UK Dietary Reference Values for Food Energy and Nutrients (COMA, 1991). The report itself is not published online, but the Department of Health summary is: Dietary Reference Values: A Guide (PDF)

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