For people adopting a vegan lifestyle or managing dietary restrictions, identifying non-vegan ingredients in food labels or recipes can be challenging. Many ingredient names—like "carmine" (a red pigment from insects) or "casein" (a milk protein)—are obscure or scientific, leading to accidental consumption of animal-derived products. This undermines ethical, environmental, or health commitments.

How It Could Work

A tool could let users paste or type ingredient lists from products or recipes, instantly flagging non-vegan items with clear explanations (e.g., "gelatin: derived from animal collagen"). Advanced features might include:

• Barcode scanning: Auto-populate ingredient lists for packaged foods.
• Crowdsourced clarification: Users could submit ambiguous ingredients for expert review.
• Alternatives guide: Suggest plant-based substitutes for flagged items.

Primary users would include vegans, vegetarians, and those with animal-based allergens, while revenue could come from freemium models or partnerships with vegan brands.

Standing Out from Existing Tools

Current apps like "Is It Vegan?" focus on scanning barcodes of pre-packaged foods, while others like PETA’s "Bunny Free" list company policies rather than ingredients. A tool analyzing custom lists—useful for recipes or bulk items—could fill this gap. Accuracy could be maintained through crowdsourced updates and collaborations with vegan organizations.

Getting Started

An MVP might begin with:

1. A basic input field to check ingredients against a curated database.
2. Highlighting non-vegan items with brief explanations.

Later phases could add barcode scanning and integrations with meal-planning apps, scaling the database via user contributions.

This approach could simplify label-reading for dietary choices while fostering a community-driven resource.