Diet certifications

• ·A certification means an independent organization has reviewed the product against a published standard, and the brand is licensed to use its mark.
• ·A label claim is the brand's own statement. Some claims have a legal definition (in the US, “gluten-free” does; see below), but nobody checks them before the product is sold.

The Certified Vegan logo is run by Vegan Action (the Vegan Awareness Foundation), a nonprofit. To be certified, a product must:

• ·Contain no meat, fish, fowl, animal by-products, eggs, milk, honey or other bee products, or insect products, and not be processed with animal products.
• ·Use no sugar filtered with bone char. Prebiotics and probiotics must be cultured on animal-free media.
• ·Not have been tested on animals, for ingredients or the finished product, since 2009.
• ·Contain no animal-derived GMOs or genes.
• ·If machinery is shared with non-vegan products, the company must show it cleans it between production runs to minimize cross-contamination.

The logo is available to companies in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and US territories.

• ·The US “gluten-free” claim is voluntary but defined by the FDA, and the rule covers dietary supplements. The food must contain less than 20 parts per million (ppm) gluten.
• ·GFCO certification (the Gluten-Free Certification Organization, a program of the Gluten Intolerance Group) requires that starting ingredients and finished products test below the gluten-free threshold of the country of sale, or 10 ppm, whichever is lower. It reviews the manufacturer's products and ingredients and sets testing requirements based on risk.

Product pages show vegan, gluten-free and dairy-free as label claims, from the brand or retailer. We never guess. If a product doesn't say it's vegan, we show “not stated” and leave it out of vegan filters and plans, even if none of its listed ingredients look animal-derived.

For dairy-free, we count a product that's labeled vegan, or one whose allergen statement is available and doesn't list milk.