What Verella checks for Crohn's disease

The 5 rules

• Fibre is 6 g or more per 100 g

  High in fibre. Some guidance suggests people with Crohn's may tolerate high-fibre foods less well during a flare. Follow your care team's advice.

  Source: Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, Diet, Nutrition and IBD; British Dietetic Association, IBD Food Fact Sheet

• Fat is 30 g or more per 100 g, or saturated fat is 12 g or more

  High in fat. Some people with Crohn's may tolerate very high-fat foods less well. Consider how this sits with you and your care team.

  Source: Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, Diet, Nutrition and IBD

• The label declares milk, lactose or dairy

  Contains dairy. Lactose can be tolerated less well by some people with Crohn's. This varies by person, so check with your care team.

  Source: Crohn's & Colitis Foundation; Bischoff et al., ESPEN guideline on clinical nutrition in IBD, Clinical Nutrition

• Carboxymethylcellulose (E466), polysorbate (E433) or carrageenan (E407) appears in the ingredients or additive tags

  Contains a dietary emulsifier. Some IBD guidance suggests people with Crohn's may prefer to limit emulsifiers found in ultra-processed foods. This is general guidance, so follow your care team's advice.

  Source: Bischoff et al., ESPEN guideline on clinical nutrition in IBD (2023), Recommendation 2, on ultra-processed food and emulsifier exclusions; Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, What Should I Eat?

• Fibre is under 2 g per 100 g, sugars are under 22.5 g, and there is real starch present (carbohydrate minus sugars is 10 g or more)

  Low in fibre. Low-residue foods are often better tolerated during a Crohn's flare (general guidance). Follow your care team's advice.

  Source: Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, low-residue diet guidance; British Dietetic Association, IBD Food Fact Sheet

  The starch condition is deliberate. Soda, boiled sweets and oil are all low in fibre too, and none of them is what low-residue guidance is talking about, so this rule only fires on genuinely starchy food.

What this looks like on a real product

A toasted oat cereal, 7.1 g of fibre and 32.1 g of sugars per 100 g.

Both verdicts above are real output from the shipped Verella engine, run on live Open Food Facts data on 5 October 2026, with only the condition changed between the two profiles. Open Food Facts data changes over time, so a scan today can differ.

The rule that runs the other way

A white sandwich bread with no fibre at all, 7.1 g of sugars and real starch behind it scores 56 with no conditions set, which is a Fine in moderation. Turn Crohn's on and it scores 60, still Fine in moderation but higher, because the low-residue rule credits it and the generic ultra-processing penalty is set aside. Most food scores only move downward when you tell them about a condition. This one moves up, because that is what flare guidance says.

Worth knowing

• Verella cannot know whether you are in a flare or in remission, and most of this guidance differs between the two. That is why every rule below is worded as something some people find, not something you should do.
• One of these rules runs in the opposite direction to a generic food score. A low-fibre refined food, which most scoring apps penalise for being refined, gets a small credit here, because low-residue eating is commonly advised during a flare.

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