What PlatePal checks
PlatePal checks a packaged food against your faith, lifestyle, and allergen requirements at once, then gives one clear verdict. Allergen and gluten detection are free for everyone. Stacking several requirements into one profile is a Premium feature.
Faith and lifestyle profiles
PlatePal screens ingredients and certification marks against these profiles. It is a screening tool, not a certification or a ruling, so verify certification yourself when it matters.
| Profile | What it flags | Where it commonly gets difficult |
|---|---|---|
| Halal | Pork and derivatives, added ethanol, animal-derived additives. Looks for a halal certification mark. | Gelatin, L-cysteine, E471 |
| Kosher | Non-kosher species, meat and dairy combinations, insect-derived colour. Looks for a kosher certification mark. | Rennet, whey, carmine |
| Vegetarian | Meat, fish, and their derivatives. | Enzymes, gelatin, carmine |
| Vegan | All animal-derived ingredients, including dairy, egg, honey, and insect-derived colour. | Whey, E471, shellac |
| Pescatarian | Meat and poultry, while allowing fish and seafood. | Gelatin source, animal fats |
| Hindu vegetarian | A vegetarian profile that also flags egg, with particular attention to bovine-derived ingredients. | Tallow-derived E471, gelatin |
You can set each active profile to Strict or Moderate. Strict treats ambiguous ingredients as concerns, Moderate surfaces them as cautions. This control is free.
Allergens and intolerances (always free)
Allergen detection is free for everyone and always evaluated at full sensitivity. When PlatePal cannot confirm a product is free of your allergen, it warns you rather than guessing.
The US Big 9
These are the major food allergens that US law requires to be declared on a label. Sesame became the ninth under the FASTER Act, effective 1 January 2023.
Milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, sesame.
EU declarable allergens
EU Regulation 1169/2011 Annex II lists fourteen. It overlaps with the US list but differs in two ways worth knowing: it treats cereals containing gluten as a group rather than naming wheat alone, and it adds five that the US list does not require.
The EU extras are celery, mustard, lupin, molluscs, and sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10 mg/kg.
Gluten, celiac, and lactose
| Setting | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Gluten and celiac | Wheat, barley, rye, and hybrids such as triticale, plus malt and brewer’s yeast derived from them. In the US, a gluten-free claim requires under 20 parts per million. |
| Lactose | Tracked separately from milk allergy. Lactose intolerance is a digestive response to milk sugar; milk allergy is an immune response to milk protein. A lactose-free product can still contain milk protein. |
Oral Allergy Syndrome (informational)
Oral Allergy Syndrome notes are informational only. They are not a diet or faith profile, and they never change a product verdict. If you have a diagnosed food allergy, use the allergen features above, which are separate and fail-safe. Learn more on our Oral Allergy Syndrome page.
How stacking works
Requirements are evaluated together on a single scan, and the strictest applicable result is what you see. A confirmed allergen outranks an unresolved dietary question, because one is a safety fact and the other is an open question. The reasons stay visible, so you can always see which requirement drove the verdict.
What no scanner can determine
Shared limits across every profile
- Undeclared cross-contamination. Advisory labelling is voluntary in both the US and the EU, so its absence proves nothing.
- The origin of an ingredient declared only by category, such as Enzymes or Natural flavouring.
- Whether a recipe changed after the product data was recorded.
- Supervision and slaughter facts, which are not ingredient facts.
- Which certifying authority or school of thought you personally follow.
In all of these cases PlatePal returns Insufficient data rather than a guess.
On the roadmap
More requirements are being considered, including Low-FODMAP, diabetes-friendly, histamine, keto, PKU, and nightshade-free. You can vote for what comes next in the app.
Where the data comes from
PlatePal uses Open Food Facts as its primary source, USDA FoodData Central as a fallback, a community database of user-contributed products, and PlatePal’s own reviewed ingredient ruleset. Product data from Open Food Facts is used under the Open Database License.
Sources
- FDA: food allergies and major allergen labelling
- EU Regulation 1169/2011, Annex II
- FDA: gluten and food labelling
- Open Food Facts
- USDA FoodData Central
Ready to try it? Halal scanner, kosher scanner, allergen scanner, the ingredient guide, or read the FAQ.