BetterMeal.AI CEO Swathi Arulguppe: on building a personalized AI nutritionist

My name is Dustin Betts. I'm a community manager at the Founder Institute. And today I'm going to be speaking with one founder at the forefront of personalized nutrition. If you are a food tech or ag tech pre-seed stage entrepreneur listening, you can actually apply right now to join the upcoming November FI Global Food and Ag Tech Accelerator at fi.co/food-ecosystems. But without further ado, I'm joined here today by Fuati Arl Guppe. She is the founder and CEO of BetterMeal.ai. This is an FI Silicon Valley portfolio company building a personalized AI nutritionist. Swati, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you, Dustin. Pleasure is mine.

So before we dive into your company, BetterMeal.ai, could you please tell us just a little bit first about yourself or your own startup story? You know, what were the experiences of yours, professional, personal, that led you to founding this personal nutrition technology startup?

Sure, I have a background in data science and AI. I've worked for many startups as a founding data scientist. Also, a few years ago, because of the stress-related, you know, job-related stress or other conditions, I started developing a lot of health issues. I used many existing healthcare applications, like you name it, I've used it, but none of them actually helped me heal my condition. Um, talked to a lot of doctors. Again, like, they were prescribing medicines, but again, vitamins and medicines are just like Band-Aids. It doesn't address the root cause of the health issues, which is gut health. So, uh, yeah, like, that is my personal story. And unfortunately, like, you know, I couldn't reverse my condition, and I was looking for something that will help me reverse my condition. That is when I started doing a lot of nutrition research understanding how the food works on the body, how much important it is for us. And that's how, like, slowly by changing the food habits, the way I was consuming, I could actually reverse my condition. And looking at many people who are suffering like me, I really wanted to help them out, you know, find a solution that can help, you know, help them reverse the disease progression. And that is the reason we are here with BetterMe AI.

Yeah, that's really, really interesting. Yeah, thanks so much for sharing that personal story. So I know because I'm, you know, a little bit familiar with it that Better Meal AI is providing like advanced intelligence for these complex health issues as you sort of alluded to. But please give us your sort of short pitch for those unfamiliar. What is Better Meal AI?

So Better Meal AI is a mobile application that provides personalized functional treatment plans for people suffering from specific health issues like diabetes, thyroid, IBD, celiac, PCOS, based on certain biomarkers that determine the gut health. And we do not have dependency on any gut test kits. So we provide personalized functional treatment plans which will help them reverse the disease progression.

Awesome. So yeah, I want to kind of like use this problem-solution framework to sort of tease apart that a little bit more. There's so much happening right now incredibly quickly. You've used the term gut health and it's like personalized nutrition, metabolic space. So tell us, like, first you mentioned like a lot of those, you know, basically gastrointestinal or like metabolic diseases. But, you know, what is the full scope of challenges as you see them today across this like health and nutrition space before we kind of dive in even deeper into Better Meal? Talk to us about that whole area that you mentioned a lot of them really quickly.

Sure. Uh, all diseases start in the gut. Today there are so many healthcare applications that helps us manage our disease better, but none of them actually focus on, you know, like reversing the disease progression. So nutritional therapy is very theoretical and people do not even want to resort to it today. And again, like most of the people who are suffering from these specific health issues they rely on either web searches or some basic general personalized nutritional recommendations, which does more harm to them than it is like actually helping them. Um, you know, like there are a lot of like healthcare applications, like I said, which provide calorie counting, nutritional tracking, psychological eating, but you know, these doesn't actually help us, uh, you know, cure ourselves. So, you know, I start doing like some crash diets or I follow certain things. Although like I am gonna like reach a particular goal, that is actually doing more harm than it is actually doing good. People say don't— do not eat carbs, but they do not know which carbs are actually good, which carbs are bad. So, you know, there is this misinterpretation of like the food and the way we eat. We are actually trying to copy someone, you you know, like who is actually talking about food, but that might not be like really helpful for me. So to address all these issues or to actually bridge the gap between, you know, misinformation, you know, gut health and the personalized, you know, nutrition that is required for the person, we, you know, like we have Better Meal AI. So, you know, like I was saying, like calorie intake and nutrition breakdown is really good what exists today. Like really helpful for weight loss, but it is not certainly enough to address the specific diseases, you know, because like, you know, we need to reach our health target in a better way rather than just focusing on weight loss. So there is a lot more to it. So that is exactly why we have Better Meal AI. And, you know, 6 in 10 people are suffering from health issues and they do not know what to eat. So, you know, like, That is exactly the reason we are trying to, like, you know, educate them about their own body, about their own gut biology, and then, you know, take the right steps to correct it.

Perfect. Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. I do feel like there's a big transition happening where it was previously, like, all dietary, or like a lot of it, it really was calorie-focused. But now, yeah, it's just becoming much more personalized and really catered to the actual person and, like, their unique metabolism. Um, so Super, super cool. I wanna ask you sort of about impact, which is like, how are you as a founder thinking about like creating, you know, dietary wellness as an outcome? Obviously like on an individual level, everybody anecdotally knows people who have like transformed their lives through changing their nutrition. But this is a huge deal sort of like at a high level for human health. I mean, in the rich world and in the poor world everywhere. So I don't know, you know, if it's something that you can quantify or measure, but how do you think about that? Like creating, wellness through Better Meal AI?

Sure. For me, food is not actually calories. Food is fuel. Food is literally the way where we communicate with our body better. So we can give certain commands to our body and help it function more efficiently than the other way. We are giving our body completely different commands when we eat a fruit versus we eat a bagel. Right, so a different set of hormones are released when I actually eat a donut versus when I'm actually eating food. So these are all the things like, I, you know, at the scientific level we need to look through, you know, when we are providing the personalized nutrition. And that is the impact we are actually providing here. So, you know, like the first step where a disease occurs is in your gut, first thing. And second thing The body is trying to communicate with us all time, every time that there is an inflammation happening. We just ignore that and we just continue with our, you know, like, whatever eating habits. And, you know, many people today, they have this— I don't like to use this word, but they have this extremist kind of attitude about eating that's like obsessive, like, you know, the obsessive way they choose to eat, actually. It's not eating obsessively, but they are very obsessive about the way they are eating, you know, their own food choices. They're very obsessive about it, but that's not right. And, you know, there is like a food science, there is a science behind each food we intake, and there is like our own body science. We are trying to match these things together and we are trying to like, you know, provide the solution that actually suits your body better. To be very specific, we are providing the solution that actually, like, you know, fixes you internally, that you would not really, you, you know, you would not need, like, you know, Band-Aids, like medicines or vitamins to just close that. So yeah, like, that is our impact which we are giving. We are actually trying to, like, you know, provide the solution that will actually, like, help them understand their body better, help them heal the gut better. With the natural food choices.

So yeah, yeah, it feels like the personalized, like, recommendation, it's all about, like you said, understanding your own body, because I feel like so many people's eating habits, my own eating habits included, are largely, like, ingrained sort of through their practice, like, and they might have come from fad diets or, like, things that you read. It's hard to, like, attribute, you know, how these, like, deep-held— it's very deep-held because it's all, like, your personal habits, but you know, it's not informed like by any kind of objective science-based or personalized measurement. It's just like what you sort of have been doing or decided was right, but it's not really informed by like real data.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I have a lot of like user stories or like, you know, the stories of my friends who try to follow a certain diet, like for example, high protein diet. Like, who actually told you to follow that particular diet? Is it like suitable for your body, and then she ended up having like kidney stones like in the future. Somebody did, you know, keto plans and then they ended up like having thyroid issues, which they never, you know, it never existed. So like I said, there is like a science behind the food. And today, like, all of us, we cannot live without like coffee or tea, right? And we love to have like creamers and sugar and dairy, like, to be very specific. But dairy today, like, you know, although it is organic also, there is a lot of, uh, there is a lot of like in, you know, like antibiotic injections or any other kind of medicines that is actually injected into the cow. So all that is going inside our body and that causes the inflammation like at a great level. It's not showing up, but the inflammation is existing there. Um, all sorts of like, you know, issues like polycystic ovarian syndrome or, you know, like extreme amount of like, you know, ovarian conditions or even like digestive issues like irritable bowel syndrome. It's all caused because of these unhealthy choices. And also, I'm not like saying, you know, lifelong you do not have to touch, you know, dairy or even gluten. But, you know, these are some of the sources, you know, which actually like is doing more harm to our body, which was believed to be good choices. But unfortunately, today in this age, it's actually doing more harm to our body than it's doing better. So we need to like, you know, think through on what we are actually consuming. And I was reading like one of the book, it's actually called Sushruta Samhita. And in that book, you know, this was written like years before, like literally years before, thousands of years before. And in this, like they literally specify that, you know, you can have like some kind of a fat in the morning. And then we are seeing everywhere around like, you know, fat first morning trending today. What is that all about? They knew something about food that we actually have missed that part. And that's exactly the reason I think, you know, they were like a little healthier and stronger. If we see our elders, like, you know, they were a little stronger than what we are. At 30 or 40 years of age, we have all sorts of health conditions, and they're like, yeah, I didn't even have that before. You know, when I, when I asked my parents So yeah, I think it's all about the food choices we are making today and then the lifestyle choices we are making today. It's all like psychological as well. I need like a guilt-free meal. I can still have it in a better way. So Better Meal AI is actually helping you make those right choices and it's not like pushing you to go like, you know, vegan diet or certain other diet. It's actually giving you the right choices and you can still eat healthy. You can still enjoy your food to the fullest. But still eat for your gut. So it's like eating for your gut and thinking from your gut. That is what we are promoting. It's just like, be kind to your gut and that'll actually like help you heal.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, uh, I understand you're currently accepting like early access subscriptions at bettermail.ai. Um, are there kind of key features coming with the release that we sort of haven't talked about yet or that you, um, want to highlight? Uh, and or, you know, when, when can I get started? Um, as a new user, any, any hints about that?

Uh, as of now, we are accepting early, you know, like early users. They can sign up on our website. So we will be releasing the app to the public next year around like spring season. And then some of the key features coming up is actually like, you know, giving them an inflammation score about their body and actually like telling them where the inflammation is happening. Might be happening in the digestive system, might be happening somewhere else, but We will actually like help them understand that, you know, and then we are gonna break down the biomarkers. So, you know, we are doing biomarker sequencing based on, based on their blood test, and that's how we are understanding the gut health here. So we will give them all insights about their gut health and help them take right steps to correct it. And that is exactly coming up in the, in an upcoming release with these new features.

Awesome. Yeah, that sounds, uh, sounds really exciting. Very, very cool. So, uh, this is where I wanna ask you about my, a lot of my guests to kind of go out on a limb and make a predictions. So how do you think like technology will ultimately improve our personal nutrition over the next 10 years? I mean, is it going to happen really fast? Are we sort of just at the cusp? Is it going to be driven through like your kind of personalized, you know, machine learning-based like recommendations or some of these other sort of things that we've talked about, like monitoring your gut health? What's your big prediction for like the next decade with technology and nutrition?

I'm sure I think there is a lot happening with the technology-wise and healthcare and even nutrition, but I see like upcoming with technology, there is a lot of potential for these machine learning algorithms or what I call like more of artificial intelligence to actually identify something which was even unknown to like, you know, humans. The algorithms have that potential to actually tell us. So I think in the future, it's more going to be like— than prediction, it's going to be more of inventing through the algorithm itself, where it is actually giving us a whole lot of information, new information about the human gut, human biology. And I think it's going to be like— for sure, it's going to be something really different. And that's going to help a lot of people benefit. Technology is both like a gift and a curse because we know a lot about, you know, things we were not supposed to be knowing. But in a way, it is actually good because it's actually telling me what I need rather than me going and searching, you know, different things on the internet and, you know, getting bad results. Today I search about some symptoms and this next thing it's saying is like, I have cancer. So that's not the way, that's not the way it works. So I think the technology has gone, at least AI and machine learning is gonna go forward where it is going to make more informed decisions about the person's biology, gut health, lifestyle, and it's going to help the person live a better life, healthy life.

Yeah, yeah, I like that prediction. I definitely believe it's happening. So yeah, we'll see how fast. But with tools like BetterMeal AI, your early adopters, those people are going to— it's incremental with you're fueling yourself. So the early adopters might see the health benefit a lot sooner than the people who catch on. As the technology becomes like more and more mainstream. So yeah, yeah, I like that. What advice would you offer to somebody who's super early stage, like rewind to where you were like a year or more ago, or maybe just an aspiring entrepreneur that's just getting started? Is there something that you wish you kind of knew, you know, a year or more ago when you were, when you were just starting out?

This is my favorite question. I think a year ago I would have told myself to actually talk to a lot of people, you know, like other entrepreneurs, to be very specific about the challenges. I think everyone cannot make all the mistakes. We collectively make mistakes and we learn from others' mistakes. I've done that and I'm happy to have like corrected that very soon off. So I would say like, I think entrepreneurs should be very adaptable. Like you're doing something, just fix it fast and move on forward. I think that is what will help them succeed faster.

Perfect. And final question is sort of like just, you know, we've sort of talked about the features already that are going to be coming with the next release, but, you know, where is BetterMeal headed next? I think, you know, any— if you want to share about fundraising or any other news or updates to share with the FI community or ask for the audience who might be watching.

The main update is we will be starting a gut-related podcast where we'll be featuring a lot of user stories, basically success stories from Better Meal AI. And I would say, audience, please look forward for that because I think this is something everyone want to understand about how the right food choices without medicines, without vitamins, how the right food choices actually help these people heal. So I'd say, please, audience, look forward for the podcast. We will have a big announcement soon.

Yeah, and we will definitely be sure to share that with me so that we can definitely disseminate that out to the FI audience as well when the podcast launches. Awesome. Perfect. Well, this has been really interesting learning about this intersection of artificial intelligence with personalized nutrition, and we're all really looking forward to keeping up with Better Meal AI and where you're headed next. Suati Arogufe, thank you so much again for joining us today.

Thank you, Dustin.