Dietary Tags
Every recipe in Platebreaker carries tags that help you filter and discover recipes matching your dietary needs. These come from two sources: tags that recipe creators add to their pages, and tags that Platebreaker computes from the ingredients.
Creator Tags
Section titled “Creator Tags”Recipe creators add tags to their web pages using structured metadata. These include things like “Vegetarian,” “Gluten-Free,” “Italian,” “Quick & Easy,” or any other label the creator chooses. Platebreaker indexes these as-is under the Category, Cuisine, Method, and Keyword tag types.
Creator tags are useful for intent and context that can’t be calculated from ingredients alone. A recipe tagged “comfort food” or “weeknight dinner” carries information about how the dish is meant to be used, not just what’s in it.
Computed Dietary Tags
Section titled “Computed Dietary Tags”Platebreaker also analyzes recipe ingredients against the USDA database to compute dietary tags automatically. These cover three areas: diet classifications, allergens, and glycemic index/load.
Diet Classifications
Section titled “Diet Classifications”Each ingredient in the USDA database is classified as vegan, vegetarian, and/or pescatarian based on its food category and composition. A recipe inherits a diet classification only if every single ingredient qualifies.
| Tag | Rule |
|---|---|
| Vegan | Every matched ingredient is plant-based. One egg or dash of cream disqualifies the whole recipe. |
| Vegetarian | Every matched ingredient is vegetarian. Fish, meat, and poultry disqualify. |
| Pescatarian | Every matched ingredient is either vegetarian or fish/seafood. Meat and poultry disqualify. |
If any ingredient can’t be classified (the data is missing), the recipe doesn’t get the tag. This is intentional. A missing classification means we can’t confirm the recipe qualifies, so we leave it untagged rather than risk a false positive. Someone filtering for vegan recipes won’t see a recipe where we weren’t sure about one ingredient.
Allergen Tags
Section titled “Allergen Tags”Allergen tagging works the opposite way. A recipe gets an allergen tag if any single ingredient contains that allergen.
Platebreaker tracks 22 allergens:
- Animal-derived: Milk, Eggs, Fish, Crustaceans, Mollusks
- Tree nuts: Almonds, Cashews, Pistachios, Walnuts, Pecans, Hazelnuts, Brazil Nuts, Macadamia Nuts, Pine Nuts, Chestnuts, Coconut
- Other common: Peanuts, Soybeans, Sesame, Corn, Wheat, Gluten
- EU-specific: Celery, Mustard, Lupin, Sulphites
The wheat and gluten tags are tracked separately. Wheat is a specific grain allergen. Gluten covers wheat, barley, rye, and their derivatives. A recipe with barley gets “Contains Gluten” but not “Contains Wheat.”
Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load
Section titled “Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load”The glycemic index (GI) measures how quickly a food raises blood sugar after eating. Low-GI foods release glucose gradually; high-GI foods cause a rapid spike. Glycemic load (GL) goes a step further by accounting for how much carbohydrate is actually in a serving — a high-GI food eaten in small amounts may have minimal impact on blood sugar.
Ingredient-Level GI
Section titled “Ingredient-Level GI”Each ingredient is matched to the international tables of glycemic index (Atkinson et al., 2008 and 2021), which contain around 3,900 tested foods. Matching uses both text similarity and semantic search to find the right GI entry for each USDA ingredient.
Not every ingredient gets a GI value. Matching requires strong lexical and semantic overlap between the USDA food name and a GI database entry. Foods without a close match, such as plain meats, most fats, and spices, are left untagged. These foods generally have negligible carbohydrate content and don’t meaningfully affect blood sugar.
GI values fall into three categories:
| Category | GI Range | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Low | 55 or below | Lentils (37), chickpeas (38), bananas (47), oats (51) |
| Medium | 56 to 69 | Basmati rice (58), whole wheat bread (65) |
| High | 70 or above | White bread (71), honey (74), cornflakes (77), potatoes (98) |
Recipe-Level Glycemic Load
Section titled “Recipe-Level Glycemic Load”At the recipe level, Platebreaker computes glycemic load rather than glycemic index. While GI describes how fast a carbohydrate hits your blood sugar, GL captures the total glycemic impact of a meal by factoring in how much of each ingredient the recipe actually uses. For each ingredient, GL is calculated as:
GL = GI x grams of net carbohydrate / 100
The recipe’s total GL is the sum across all ingredients. A stir-fry with a large serving of white rice would have a higher GL than the same stir-fry with a small serving, even though the rice’s GI is the same in both cases.
Recipes where no ingredients have GI data don’t get a GL tag. This is common for meat-heavy or fat-heavy dishes where glycemic impact is minimal.
Sources and Methodology
Section titled “Sources and Methodology”Ingredient GI values are derived by matching USDA ingredients to the international tables of glycemic index published by Atkinson et al. (2008, 2021). These tables compile GI values tested under standardized conditions across multiple laboratories worldwide.
Ingredient GI classification uses the thresholds established in the FAO/WHO Technical Report 894 (1998) on carbohydrates in human nutrition: Low ≤55, Medium 56–69, High ≥70.
Recipe GL is computed using the standard glycemic load formula used by the Glycemic Index Foundation (University of Sydney): GL = GI × net carbohydrate (g) / 100, where net carbohydrate is total carbohydrate minus fiber. The recipe’s total GL is the sum of each ingredient’s GL.
- Atkinson FS, Brand-Miller JC, Foster-Powell K, Buyken AE, Goletzke J. International tables of glycemic index and glycemic load values 2021: a systematic review. Am J Clin Nutr. 2021;114(5):1625-1632.
- Atkinson FS, Foster-Powell K, Brand-Miller JC. International tables of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2008. Diabetes Care. 2008;31(12):2281-2283.
- FAO/WHO. Carbohydrates in human nutrition. Report of a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation. FAO Food and Nutrition Paper 66. Rome, 1998.
- Salmeron J, Manson JE, Stampfer MJ, Colditz GA, Wing AL, Willett WC. Dietary fiber, glycemic load, and risk of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in women. JAMA. 1997;277(6):472-477.
Using Tags in Search
Section titled “Using Tags in Search”All tags, whether from creators or computed, appear in the Tags filter tab when searching recipes. You can place tags into three lists:
- Any: Match recipes with at least one of these tags
- Required: Match only recipes with all of these tags
- Exclude: Remove recipes with any of these tags
For example, you could search for recipes that require “Vegan” while excluding “Contains Peanuts.” This combines the computed dietary analysis with your personal filtering needs.