🥬 Dietary classification
Every ingredient is checked against rule lists. The worst finding wins, in this order:
- Non-Vegetarian meat, seafood, poultry, insects (carmine/E120), slaughter byproducts (gelatin, lard, tallow, animal rennet, pepsin, isinglass)
- Grey Area ingredients whose animal vs. plant/microbial origin isn't stated: rennet/"enzymes", glycerin, lecithin, mono- & diglycerides (E471), disodium inosinate (E631), vitamin D3, L-cysteine (E920), shellac…
- Vegetarian dairy, eggs, honey, beeswax — animal products without slaughter
- Vegan nothing animal-derived detected
The rennet rule: cheese listed without "microbial rennet", "vegetable enzymes" or similar is capped at Grey Area — as traditional rennet is extracted from calf stomachs, and the label alone can't prove otherwise.
We trust explicit plant sources: "soy lecithin" and "vegetable glycerin" stay vegan; bare "lecithin" or "glycerin" do not.
Nuance notes never change the verdict: bone-char-filtered sugar (US) and "natural flavors" are flagged for your information only — otherwise nearly every product would be Grey Area.