Diets explained: what each one means, and what Ava checks

Your Health profile has a section called Never. The diet you tick there is a rule, not a nudge: Ava keeps to it in every plan she builds, in the plan wizard, in the recipe library and in For you. This guide explains what each diet means and exactly what Ava checks, so you know what ticking it does.

How Ava checks a recipe

• Some diets are a set of foods a recipe must avoid: vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, keto and Mediterranean. Every recipe in the library is tagged with the diets it fits, and only recipes tagged with yours are offered.
• Others are a promise a recipe has to make: gluten-free, dairy-free, low FODMAP, halal and kosher. A recipe is only offered when it is positively marked as meeting that standard. A recipe that simply is not marked is treated as unknown, and unknown is left out.
• If you tick more than one, a recipe has to meet all of them.
• The check runs on your own computer against your own profile. Only the names of the recipes go to our server, to look up their labels; your diet is not sent with them. The one exception is when Ava fills a plan’s days from the library: then your profile is used on our server to pick what fits, and is not stored.

Vegan

No animal products at all: no meat, fish or seafood, and also no dairy, eggs or honey. People choose it for animal welfare, the environment or health. It takes a little planning to get enough vitamin B12, iron, calcium, iodine and omega-3, and B12 usually needs a supplement or fortified foods.

What Ava checks: only recipes tagged vegan.

Vegetarian

No meat, poultry, fish or seafood, but dairy and eggs are fine. Watch for hidden animal ingredients: gelatine, anchovies in some sauces and dressings, and animal rennet in some hard cheeses.

What Ava checks: only recipes tagged vegetarian.

Pescatarian

Vegetarian, plus fish and seafood. A common choice for people who want to eat less meat while keeping an easy source of protein and omega-3.

What Ava checks: only recipes tagged pescatarian.

Gluten-free

Gluten is a protein in wheat, barley and rye, and in grains made from them: spelt, semolina, couscous, bulgur and malt. People with coeliac disease must avoid it completely, because even small amounts damage the gut. Others avoid it because of a sensitivity.

• Oats are naturally gluten-free, but most are grown or milled alongside wheat, so only oats labelled gluten-free are safe for coeliacs. A few people react to oats themselves.
• Cross-contamination matters: a shared toaster, a floured worktop or a deep-fat fryer used for battered food can be enough.
• Check labels on stock cubes, soy sauce (often made with wheat), sauces and anything with malt.

What Ava checks: only recipes marked gluten-free. In your own kitchen, the shop-bought ingredients still need checking against their labels.

Dairy-free

No milk or anything made from it: butter, cheese, cream, yoghurt, and milk powder or whey in processed food. Two quite different reasons lead here, and it helps to know which is yours.

• A cow’s milk allergy is the immune system reacting to milk proteins. It needs dairy avoided completely, and reactions can go beyond the stomach to the skin and breathing.
• Lactose intolerance is the gut struggling to digest the sugar in milk. It usually means cutting down rather than cutting out, and many people manage hard cheese or lactose-free milk without trouble.

What Ava checks: only recipes marked dairy-free. If you have a milk allergy, add Milk under Allergies as well. That makes Ava check the ingredients too, not just the label.

Low FODMAP

FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides And Polyols: certain sugars and fibres the small intestine absorbs poorly. Gut bacteria ferment them instead, which in sensitive people causes bloating, wind, cramps and pain. The diet was developed at Monash University in Australia, and it is widely used for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

• Common high-FODMAP foods: onion and garlic (the big two), wheat, beans and lentils, apples, pears, honey, milk, and sweeteners such as sorbitol.
• It is not meant to be followed forever. Monash describes three steps: a few weeks of eating low FODMAP to calm symptoms, then bringing foods back one group at a time to find your own triggers, then a long-term diet that only limits what bothers you.
• Monash recommends doing it with a FODMAP-trained dietitian, and checking with a doctor first that IBS is the cause.

What Ava checks: only recipes marked low FODMAP.

Keto

A very low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet, usually around 20 to 50 grams of carbohydrate a day. Bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, sugar and most fruit are out; meat, fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, oils and leafy vegetables are in. With so little carbohydrate the body burns fat for fuel and makes ketones, a state called ketosis. It is used for weight loss, and under medical supervision for some kinds of epilepsy.

What Ava checks: only recipes tagged keto.

Mediterranean

Less a set of rules than a way of eating, based on the traditional food of countries around the Mediterranean: plenty of vegetables, fruit, beans, whole grains, nuts and olive oil; fish often; poultry, eggs and dairy in moderation; red meat and sweets now and then. It is one of the most studied eating patterns, linked with good heart health.

What Ava checks: only recipes tagged Mediterranean.

Halal

Food permitted under Islamic law. Pork and anything made from it is forbidden, as is alcohol, including alcohol used in cooking. Meat must come from an animal slaughtered the halal way (dhabiha). Watch for hidden sources: gelatine, lard, and some flavourings and emulsifiers.

What Ava checks: only recipes marked halal in the library. Ava cannot tell where your meat came from, so buy it from a halal-certified butcher or brand. Standards differ between communities; follow your own.

Kosher

Food permitted under Jewish dietary law (kashrut). Pork and shellfish are forbidden; meat must come from permitted animals slaughtered and prepared the kosher way; fish must have fins and scales. Meat and dairy are never eaten together, and observant households keep separate dishes and utensils for each. Foods that are neither, such as eggs, fish, fruit and vegetables, are called parve and go with either.

What Ava checks: only recipes marked kosher in the library. Ava cannot certify your ingredients or your kitchen: buy certified meat and packaged foods, and follow your own community’s standard.

Allergies are a separate box

A diet and an allergy are not the same thing, and Ava treats them differently. If something could make you ill, put it under Allergies as well. Ava then checks every recipe against what it actually contains, not just against its labels, and anything that contains it is never offered. For the few allergens a recipe cannot be confirmed free of, such as fish, sesame and mustard, Ava checks the ingredients and tells you plainly that is all she could check.

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