Gutlog

Clean verdicts and organic

Our own ingredient rubric with an evidence level per flag, profiles, swaps and when organic is worth it.

Scan a barcode or log a meal and Gutlog says how clean it is, which ingredients it flagged and why. The rubric is our own and published: every flag names the ingredient, the category and how strong the evidence behind it is, so you can decide which flags you care about. The whole rubric is published at /clean/rubric, with a page per ingredient under /ingredients.

Verdicts

A product, a meal and a day each get one of Clean, Mostly clean or Not clean, plus a score from 0 to 100. Ask “is this clean?” with a barcode, or “how clean was my food this week?”.

What the rubric flags

  • Natural and artificial flavors
  • Artificial sweeteners and artificial colors
  • Industrial seed oils, hydrogenated and interesterified fats
  • Added sugars and syrups
  • Certain preservatives (such as BHA, BHT, TBHQ, nitrites and benzoates)
  • Certain emulsifiers and gums (such as carrageenan, polysorbate 80 and CMC)
  • Flavor enhancers, refined starches and maltodextrin, bleached and enriched flours
  • Anything banned or restricted in the EU

Evidence levels

Many clean-label flags are preference rather than settled science. Each flag says which it is:

  • Regulatory: a regulator banned, restricted or required a warning for it somewhere.
  • Strong: consistent evidence of harm at the amounts people eat.
  • Mixed: studies disagree, or the evidence is mostly from animals or very high doses.
  • Preference: no evidence of harm; some people avoid it anyway.

Profiles

Strict flags everything in the rubric, Balanced is the middle ground most people start with, and Custom lets you switch any category on or off. Your profile changes the verdict, never the ingredient list.

When organic is worth it

For produce, Gutlog uses the current Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists from the Environmental Working Group, cited with their year: buy organic, conventional is fine, or no strong reason either way. The lists are about pesticide residue on conventionally grown produce, not about nutrition.

Cleaner swaps

When a product is not clean, Gutlog suggests products in the same category from the barcode index that score better.

These verdicts are general information about ingredients, not medical advice. For food allergies or a medical diet, follow your clinician. See also gut tracking.