Binding
Firming things up
Most of what Toots & Trots scores counts against a food. Binding is the one that counts for it — the starch and gel-forming fibre that thicken output and slow it down instead of loosening it.
If your days are shaped by output that's too frequent, too loose and too urgent, this is the part of the score to pay attention to. It won't fix everything, and it works alongside your own team rather than instead of them — but it's the lever most people find first.
Four things that change how loose output is
Starch that soaks
White rice, peeled potato, cornflour, sago. They hold water on the way through and slow everything down. This is why rice and mash are the first thing anyone hands you.
Gel-forming fibre
Psyllium and pectin form a gel rather than adding bulk, and gut bacteria barely ferment them — so you get the thickening without much of the wind.
Losing the water-pullers
Concentrated sugar and sugar alcohols pull water into the bowel. Sometimes the fastest win isn't adding a binder, it's removing the thing working against it.
Portion and pace
Smaller and more often beats one big plate. A binder doesn't fix a meal that arrives faster than you can handle.
The method we get asked about most
The psyllium shaker: season your food, not your day
Everyone tells you to drink psyllium in a glass of water. There's a better way to do it — keep it dry, put it in a herb shaker, and treat it like pepper. You dose by meal instead of by day, and nobody at the table needs to know what it is.
Read the method, the dose and the safety notes →Six savoury blends, no onion or garlic
Everyday salt, garden herb, green goddess, smoky paprika, roast umami and warm spice — with weights, scores, and what never belongs in a shaker.
The sweet blends
For stewed fruit and porridge — led by the honest tension that the psyllium thickens while the sugar carrying it pulls water in.
Still an experiment
Can you hide psyllium inside chocolate?
Coating psyllium in fat delays the gel by minutes — long enough to get from bowl to mouth. A chocolate crumb, a caramel sand, and a two-glass test you can run yourself.
The strongest binding foods we've scored
Ranked by how much they thicken, then by how gentle they are overall — because a food that firms things up while being hard work elsewhere is a poor trade.
| Food | Binding | Overall | How gentle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psyllium huskas served / plain | 78 | 0.7 | Likely gentler |
| Pectin (e.g. in applesauce)as served / plain | 76 | 0.9 | Likely gentler |
| Glucomannan / konjacas served / plain | 76 | 0.9 | Likely gentler |
| Arrowrootas served / plain | 72 | 0.3 | Likely gentler |
| Sago / tapioca pearlsboiled & drained | 72 | 0.4 | Likely gentler |
| Cornflour / cornstarchas served / plain | 72 | 0.1 | Likely gentler |
| White ricesteamed | 72 | 0.3 | Likely gentler |
| Arborio ricesteamed | 72 | 0.3 | Likely gentler |
| Potato starchas served / plain | 72 | 0.3 | Likely gentler |
| Basmati ricesteamed | 72 | 0.3 | Likely gentler |
| Jasmine ricesteamed | 72 | 0.4 | Likely gentler |
| Rice flouras served / plain | 72 | 0.4 | Likely gentler |
Binding is shown on its own 0–100 scale; overall is the 0–10 GASP score, where lower is gentler. Browse every scored food →
Read more
B is for Binding: foods that help firm things up
What the Binding signal means, the gentle starches many people find slow things down, and why firming output goes hand in hand with hydration.
Mira Sefton
Foods That May Firm Up Loose Output: Gentle Binders
Which everyday foods may thicken loose output for a J-pouch or ostomy, why they work, and how to use them without overdoing it.
Mira Sefton
What Makes J-Pouch Output Runnier: The S in GASP
The Stool-loosening score explains why some foods make output faster and looser. Here's what drives it, and gentler moves to slow things down.
Mira Sefton
Where the binding score comes from
Binding is the B in GASP. It's modelled from two things — starch that holds water, and gel-forming soluble fibre — and it works as a discount on the rest of the score rather than a score of its own, because thickening output doesn't undo everything else a food does.
Written and checked from lived experience with a J-pouch. Last updated August 2026. The GASP Score is a modelled estimate, not medical advice — always work alongside your own clinical team.