Allergen scanner
PlatePal is a free allergen scanner. Scan a product barcode and it checks the ingredients against the allergens you have set, then shows one clear verdict. Allergen and gluten detection is free for everyone, on every scan, and is never placed behind the paywall.
Why allergen alerts are free
Every other check in PlatePal can wait. An allergen check cannot. Putting a safety feature behind a subscription means the person who most needs it is the person most likely not to have it, and that is not a trade we are willing to make. Premium unlocks depth and convenience. It never unlocks safety.
If you are at a desk rather than in a shop, the web food checker runs the same allergen screen on a product you look up by name.
What it covers
PlatePal screens against the allergens that labelling law requires manufacturers to declare, in both the United States and the European Union, plus two conditions that sit outside those lists but matter just as much day to day.
| Group | Covered |
|---|---|
| US Big 9 | Milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. Sesame became the ninth major allergen under the FASTER Act, effective 1 January 2023. |
| EU extras | The EU declarable list adds celery, mustard, lupin, molluscs, and sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10 mg/kg, and treats cereals containing gluten as a group rather than wheat alone. |
| Gluten and celiac | Wheat, barley, rye, and their hybrids such as triticale, plus malt and brewer’s yeast derived from them. |
| Lactose | Tracked separately from milk allergy, because the two are different conditions with different thresholds. |
| Oral Allergy Syndrome | Shown as an informational note only. See OAS for why it never changes a verdict. |
Gluten shows up outside plain bread and pasta more than most shoppers expect; the gluten free candy list and are Cheerios gluten free walk through two common trip-up categories, Halloween candy and a breakfast cereal, label by label.
Milk allergy is not lactose intolerance
These get conflated constantly, and the difference matters at the shelf. A milk allergy is an immune response to milk protein, and the dose that triggers it can be very small. Lactose intolerance is a digestive response to milk sugar, and tolerance varies from person to person.
The practical consequence: a lactose-free product can still contain milk protein and is not safe for a milk allergy. Whey protein isolate is a good example, since it is very low in lactose and still very much milk. PlatePal keeps the two settings separate so one never gets mistaken for the other.
Fail-safe by design
Most scanners answer a question they cannot always answer. PlatePal is built the other way around: when the data is incomplete, it says so and warns you, rather than returning a clean result that happens to be unfounded.
- No product data on file: PlatePal returns Insufficient data and offers to read the label with your camera instead.
- Ingredients present but no allergen statement: the ingredient text is screened, and the absence of a declaration is reported as unconfirmed rather than as safe.
- A may contain or shared-line advisory: surfaced as its own warning, since advisory labelling is voluntary and inconsistent.
- An ingredient that can hide an allergen, such as unspecified natural flavouring: flagged for review.
The rule is simple. PlatePal will tell you it does not know. It will not tell you something is safe on evidence it does not have.
Where allergens hide
Declared allergens are the easy case, because law requires them on the label. The harder case is an ingredient whose name does not announce what it is made from. The ingredient guide covers these in detail, including whey for milk, fish gelatin for fish, and L-cysteine, which is common in commercial bread and buns.
Stacking allergens with a faith or lifestyle diet
Allergen checks run alongside whichever other profiles you have set, on the same scan. If you keep halal and avoid peanuts, both are evaluated together and the strictest applicable result is what you see. A confirmed allergen always outranks an unresolved dietary question, because one is a safety fact and the other is an open question. Packing a lunchbox for a nut-free classroom raises this exact stacking problem in miniature, since a snack has to clear a peanut ban and still be something a kid will eat; see the peanut free classroom snacks list for packaged picks that do.
What PlatePal cannot determine
Known limits
- Cross-contamination that is not declared. Advisory labelling is voluntary in both the US and the EU, so its absence proves nothing.
- Trace quantities below a labelling threshold.
- Whether a recipe changed after the product data was recorded.
- Allergens outside the declarable lists, unless they appear by name in the ingredients.
- Your personal threshold, which only you and your allergist know.
Always read the physical label before eating something you react to. PlatePal is a screening tool, not a medical device, and it is not a substitute for advice from your allergist.
Sources
- FDA: food allergies and major allergen labelling
- EU Regulation 1169/2011, Annex II
- FDA: gluten and food labelling
Private by default
No account is needed to start, and PlatePal runs no advertising trackers. Signed out, your allergens stay on your device. Read the privacy policy for what syncs when you sign in.
See the full list on supported diets and allergens, browse the ingredient guide, read the FAQ, or compare with Fig.