01
test
Send a sample.
Collect one small sample at home — a couple of minutes, one morning. Post it back in the prepaid box. Aramex picks up from your door.
Maag / kit no. 0418
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Launching soon · South African gut-health platform
Read your gut.
Eat for it.
Maag maps your microbiome: collect a sample at home with our kit, post it back, and our lab sequences it. Then we build your weekly meals around the bacteria your gut needs, as fresh ingredient kits you cook, ready-made meals you heat, or a mix of both. Flora, two daily plant blends, fills the gaps in between with the everyday plant variety your gut thrives on. One subscription covers the kit, the report, and the food. No counting, no guessing.
why it matters
A healthy gut works quietly in the background.
Your gut is home to trillions of bacteria, and researchers increasingly treat it as something close to a central organ: the place where the food you eat is turned into signals the rest of the body reads. When those bacteria ferment fibre, they make short-chain fatty acids, butyrate chief among them. Butyrate fuels the cells lining your gut and supports the barrier that keeps things where they belong.
myth buster
Most butyrate is made in your gut, not found in food. That is why feeding the bacteria beats buying a supplement.
A wider range of microbes, and a better balance between them, is linked to steadier energy, lower inflammation, and a gut that copes with more. Emerging research connects it to immunity, mood and long-term health too, though this is a young field and much of it is still association, not proof. None of this replaces a doctor: blood in your stool, pain, or a lasting change in bowel habits should always be checked by a healthcare professional.
a diverse gut · what it's linked to
Steadier blood sugar and blood fat after meals
well supported
More fibre, lower cardiovascular & type-2-diabetes risk
well supported
Lower chronic inflammation
well supported
A stronger gut barrier and better regularity
well supported
Immunity and infection resistance
emerging
Mood, focus and healthy ageing
emerging
the lever is mostly food:
feed the microbes, don't buy them.
why personalised
The same meal is not the same meal.
Feed the same lentil bowl to two people and their guts do different things with it. One ferments the fibre into butyrate, the fuel the gut lining runs on. The other barely responds. Generic healthy-eating plans are written for an average gut that nobody actually has.
So we read yours first, then cook for it. What that earns you is unglamorous and real: steadier digestion, steadier energy, a gut that copes with more. Food, doing the work it's meant to.
one lentil bowl · two guts
gut A
high
butyrate response
gut B
low
butyrate response
same fibre in, different fuel out. The bowl isn't the variable.
The gut is.
how it works
Three steps. About a fortnight.
You don't need a clinician, a fast, or a Whatsapp group with strangers. Post a sample, read your report, eat the food that arrives.
02
map
Read your gut.
The lab sequences your microbiome. You get a plain-English report on diversity, key species, what to feed them, and which foods to cut back.
diversity
7.4
akkermansia
low
f. prausnitzii
mid
bifidobacter.
good
butyrate prod.
mid
lactobacillus
good
03
eat
Get the food.
A weekly box of fresh ingredients and recipes, chosen for your gut, not a generic plan. Pause or skip anytime.
oat
hake
kale
tahini
lentil
fig
then · month 3
You re-test. A follow-up kit shows what's grown and what's still short, and your meals adjust with it. Your gut isn't a verdict, it's a garden.
what we measure
Six readings that actually change what you eat.
We don't return a hundred-page PDF you'll never open. Six measurements, plotted against a healthy range, with one or two foods named per finding.
- diversity Shannon index: how many distinct species share the room. Higher is more resilient.
- key species Akkermansia, F. prausnitzii, Bifidobacter. The keystone tenants, named individually, not lumped.
- SCFA Butyrate, acetate, propionate: what the bacteria make from your fibre. The fuel your gut lining runs on.
- balance Firmicutes / Bacteroidetes ratio: the two big phyla. Reported as context, not a verdict.
- inflammation Pro-inflammatory load: counts of species linked to gut-lining irritation.
- food signals Fibre, polyphenol & fermented-food fits: which of your current foods are working, and which to ease off.
Maag / report · 04-1782
Your gut, May 2026
7.4
diversity / 10
key species
2 of 4 below range
Akkermansia muciniphila
· low
0.4%
F. prausnitzii
· low-mid
2.1%
Bifidobacterium spp.
· good
6.8%
Lactobacillus spp.
· good
3.4%
SCFA producers
in range
Butyrate-producing
· mid
8.2%
Propionate-producing
· good
11.4%
→ feed first:
oats, ground flax, pomegranate, dark cocoa, fermented vegetables, to feed
Akkermansia
and butyrate production.
→ ease off:
white rice & low-fibre refined carbs. Your sample flags a sharp blood-sugar response.
Maag Flora
Over forty plants. Two blends.
The meals feed what your report found. Flora covers the other half of the science: the largest gut studies keep landing on the same number — people who eat thirty or more different plants a week carry measurably more diverse microbiomes than people who eat ten.
Maag Flora comes as two daily blends, built from South African indigenous and locally sourced plants. Môre (morning) is fruit and fibre — rooibos, baobab and seeds, bright in porridge, yoghurt or a smoothie. Noen (midday) is ferments and fungi — sorghum, morogo and herbs that sit naturally in savoury cooking. Twenty-plus plants each; take both and you pass the thirty-a-week mark every single day. No test required; this one is for every gut. The personalisation lives in the meals.
- môre Fruit & fibre. A scoop in breakfast, before the day gets loud.
- noen Ferments & fungi. Stirred into lunch like a seasoning.
- for everyone Tested or not, low Akkermansia or none of the above. Start with one blend or run both.
Maag / flora · two daily blends
40+ plants
am · môre
fruit & fibre · 20+ plants
fig
baobab
oat
flax
berries
pm · noen
ferments & fungi · 20+ plants
shiitake
tomato
fennel
sorghum
thyme
run both: 40+ plants a day
one scoop each
a sample box
Four dinners. Built for your gut.
Every box is different. These four are tuned for low Akkermansia and mid butyrate, the kind of finding we expect to be common in the first cohort.
format 01 · cook
Ingredient kits.
Fresh ingredients, portioned, with the recipe card. 25 to 40 minutes at the stove, and you learn the dishes as you go.
format 02 · heat
Ready-made meals.
The same recipes, the same gut targets, cooked in our kitchen and frozen. Minutes from freezer to plate.
Mix them however the week looks: cook on the quiet nights, heat on the chaotic ones. Every recipe is designed by a registered SA dietitian to the same gut targets, whichever format it arrives in.
mon · 35 min
Roast butternut, tahini, kale & barley.
↑ akkermansia
· fibre 14g
· polyphenols
tue · 30 min
Spiced lentils, rye, pickled red cabbage.
↑ butyrate
· fibre 18g
· fermented
wed · 25 min
Grilled hake, fennel, brown rice, dill.
↑ diversity
· omega-3
· fibre 9g
thu · 40 min
Chickpea & spinach curry, brown basmati.
↑ f. prausnitzii
· fibre 16g
· polyphenols
still fermenting
Join the waitlist.
Drop your email to claim your place in line. Kits go out in the order people join, so sign up now to be among the first to test when we launch. We'll keep you posted on how it works and what we're learning from the lab. See previous articles.
the lab work
Done in South Africa, by people whose names we publish.
No black box. The sequencing is done at an accredited lab in Cape Town using shotgun metagenomics, the same method used in clinical research, not the cheaper 16S kits that read genus only.
1,200+
species resolved
Shotgun metagenomics, not 16S. Strain-level where the data supports it.
14 days
sample to report
Lab turnaround target, including the courier hop from your door to Cape Town and back.
v2.3
reference database
Continuously updated against published SA-cohort and Human Microbiome Project data.
popia
your sample, your data
Stored under POPIA. Deletable on request. Never sold, never licensed. We wrote that into the contract.
questions worth answering
The questions we keep being asked.
If yours isn't here, write to hello@maag.co.za . A real person replies, usually the same day.
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When is launch?
First kits ship to the founding cohort in the coming months, in the order people joined the waitlist. Join now and you'll hear it here first, plus how it works and what we're learning along the way.
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Why does gut health matter so much?
Your gut microbiome is where fibre becomes fuel. When these bacteria ferment the fibre you eat, they make short-chain fatty acids like butyrate that feed your gut lining and support the barrier around it. A more diverse microbiome is linked to steadier blood sugar, lower inflammation and better digestion, with emerging research pointing to immunity, mood and healthy ageing. The lever is mostly food, plant variety and fibre, rather than supplements. It is not a substitute for medical care: see a doctor for symptoms like blood in your stool, pain, or a lasting change in bowel habits.
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How is this different from a stool test from a clinic?
A clinic stool test looks for pathogens: parasites, C. difficile, blood. Maag does not. We sequence the bacteria that should be there and report on balance. They answer different questions; both have a place.
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Is the food medical? Vegan? Halaal?
The food is dinner, two ways: ingredient kits you cook yourself, and ready-made meals we cook and freeze. Both are designed by a registered SA dietitian to the same gut targets. We can build vegetarian, pescatarian or halaal boxes. Strict allergens (gluten, dairy, nuts) we cannot fully isolate yet, so see the allergens page.
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Do I need the test to take Maag Flora?
No. Flora is the plant-diversity baseline every gut benefits from: a fruit-and-fibre Morning blend and a ferments-and-fungi Midday blend, twenty-plus plants each. The test and the meals are where the personalisation happens. Plenty of people will start with Flora and test later.
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What if my gut report is fine?
Many are. The food still gets tuned for diversity and resilience. There is always something to feed.
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Do you ship to small towns?
Yes. Fresh boxes to the four metros, dry pantry boxes via Aramex everywhere else. The kit ships everywhere.