diet and allergen labeling

Diet and allergen labeling is a field type: derived per-product flags computed on top of raw nutrition panels and ingredient text, not measurements collected from packaging. That distinction determines who is accountable for accuracy.

Three cataloged sources illustrate the range:

• Edamam Food Database API supplies 'Edamam-generated diet, allergy and nutrition labels' as part of the API response, tagged 'diet-labels' and 'allergens', across close to 1,000,000 food items including ~790,000 unique UPC barcodes. - Kaggle - World Food Facts (Open Food Facts mirror) tags 'nutri-score', 'ingredients' and 'allergens' over ~356,000 products in a static 2017 snapshot licensed commercial delivery terms.

So the same word 'allergen' spans a vendor's generated label, a crowdsourced column, and a recall reason.

Allergen fields feed purchasing, formulation and compliance decisions, where a wrong flag is a safety event:

• Derived labels inherit upstream errors. Edamam's labels are generated from product data across ~790,000 barcodes; gaps in ingredient text become missing allergen flags, silently.

• Snapshot age matters more than size. The World Food Facts mirror froze in September 2017; formulations change, so its allergen columns describe products as they were.

• The cost of a wrong flag is visible in recalls. Allergens appear as recall reason categories among FDA's ~1,025 live notices - mislabeled product gets recalled.

Treat the label as a claim to be verified:

1. Ask who generated the flag. Edamam states its labels are Edamam-generated; Open Food Facts columns are crowd-contributed. Accountability differs and should shape trust.
2. Check the basis quantity underneath. Diet and allergy labels are computed from nutrient values expressed per serving or per 100 g; if the basis is inconsistent, the derived label inherits the inconsistency.
3. Date-stamp any snapshot. The Kaggle mirror is a static 2017 snapshot with no updates - fine for schema work, unsafe for current compliance.

These entries cover the fields and lookups that feed allergen labels:

• Nutrient basis field - the reference quantity a nutrition value is expressed against, typically per serving or per 100 grams; commercial APIs default to per-serving while Open Food Facts extracts carry per-100g values.
• UPC barcode lookup - resolving a packaged product's barcode to its structured nutrition record; Edamam covers about 790,000 unique barcodes and Nutritionix more than one million.
• Food recall notice - one announced regulatory recall event carrying date, brand, product description, recall reason and company name, with allergens among the reason categories.