About

I was diagnosed with IBS in 2016, but I'd been dealing with it for years before that. The early years were the usual runaround. Bloating that never went away, GI distress that got worse every time I ate out, doctors handing me probiotics and proton pump inhibitors and sending me on my way. It took a few more doctors before anyone mentioned FODMAPs.

Low FODMAP worked. It also took its toll on my social life. Restaurants stopped being something I looked forward to. Most of them became a calculation: is the meal worth tomorrow. It strained the relationships around me, and at one point it was one of the bigger factors in the end of a long-term relationship. That's the part of IBS people don't talk about. It isn't just the symptoms, it's everything the symptoms quietly cost you.

In 2022 I found FODZYME, and for the first time in years I could eat garlic and onion without paying for it later. It was a real product. It worked. I budgeted around it because it was worth it.

About two years in, I came across a Reddit post about buying the enzymes directly from a manufacturer. I reached out, built a relationship with the supplier, and ordered samples. They worked as well as FODZYME, and in some respects better. That was the moment it became obvious that the science wasn't the gate. The price was.

I sat on the idea for a while. My first kid was born around the same time, and a supplement brand wasn't going to happen in that window. Two years later I came back to it.

I started by testing the enzymes on myself, then on my cousin (same IBS, probably the same genes), and eventually sent free beta samples out to anyone who wanted to try them. The feedback was good enough to keep going.

That's what Fodease is. Same three core enzymes the category has been built on, inulinase, alpha-galactosidase, and lactase, targeting the same FODMAPs: fructans, GOS, and lactose. Every enzyme on our label is listed with its exact dose and activity unit. INU, GalU, FCC. No proprietary blends. No "enzyme complex 250mg" with nothing behind it. If you want to know what's in our jar and what it actually does, the answer is on the label. Compare it to what's on theirs. We priced ours at roughly 30% less per jar.

I built this because I wanted it for myself, and because the people I've talked to in the FODMAP community deserve a version they can actually afford to use the way it's meant to be used.

Julian Founder, Fodease