Human bodies contain trillions of microbes, so much that the number of microbes rival the number of human cells in a body. These microbes help shape many of our biological functions. For example, microbes in the gut break down food into small molecules called metabolites, many of which are important for human health. Measuring species composition of the microbial community using metagenomics has become a quick and automated process, while measuring the concentrations of metabolites produced by those microbes, a process called metabolomics, is much more difficult and expensive.