Dietary preferences and allergies
How to set allergies and dietary preferences, what A La Carte does with them, and what the flagging can and cannot be relied on for.
Setting your allergies and preferences
Profile → Dietary Profile holds two lists: Allergies (nuts, dairy, shellfish and the rest) and Preferences (vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher, gluten-free, dairy-free, keto, low-carb, paleo, low-FODMAP, low-sodium and others). Tap to select.
Selecting 'Other' in either list opens a free-text box for anything the buttons don't cover — an ingredient you can't eat, a restriction phrased your own way, or a note like 'no cilantro'. Free text carries the same weight as the buttons.
You're asked for this during onboarding too; both screens edit the same profile.
How your profile is used
Every recipe you save is checked against your profile, and a recipe that conflicts is flagged on the recipe itself.
Recipes you create or edit with AI are built to respect your profile from the start.
If you change your allergies, preferences or notes, the recipes you have ALREADY saved are re-checked, so the flags reflect your current profile rather than an old one.
To adapt a flagged recipe, open it and use 'Edit with AI' — ask for what you need and it rewrites the recipe, leaving everything else intact.
What the checking can and cannot do
Allergen flagging is generated automatically and it can be wrong. It reads recipe text. It cannot know how a product was manufactured, what else a facility processes, or what a brand changed last month.
Treat it as a second pair of eyes that catches obvious problems quickly. It is not a substitute for reading labels, and it is not medical advice. If a mistake would be dangerous for you, verify independently, every time.