The ingredient watchlist
Ten ingredients, and not one more. Every flag here exists because a named body looked at the ingredient and published a decision. Nothing is on this list because it sounds like a chemical.
Two severities
-
7 of them cap the verdict
Verdict goes to Best avoided whatever the nutrition panel says. These are the cases where a regulator has withdrawn, banned or announced a phase-out of the ingredient. Good macros on the front of the pack cannot outweigh that.
-
3 of them are cautions
A sourced concern worth surfacing, but not a cap. One caution holds the verdict at Better occasionally at best. Two or more take it to Best avoided.
By category
Food dyes
Colour is the one additive category where regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have moved recently, and in the same direction.
3 flags
Artificial trans fat
Partially hydrogenated oil carries the heaviest single penalty in Verella, heavier than any nutrition number.
2 flags
Sweeteners
Sugar-free is the aisle where the ingredient list matters most, because what replaced the sugar is the thing worth reading.
1 flag
Preservatives and processed meat
Four preservative cases, each resting on a specific decision by a specific body rather than on a general worry about additives..
4 flags
Why the list is short
A watchlist that flags everything is the same as a watchlist that flags nothing, because you stop reading it. Verella only adds an ingredient when a body like the FDA, EFSA, IARC or a national regulator has published a decision on it, which means the list stays short and every flag means something.
It also means Verella is deliberately silent on ingredients a lot of people worry about. There is no flag for seed oils, no flag for stevia or sucralose, and no flag for "natural flavours". Not because those are settled, but because the citation that would justify a flag does not exist yet.
The exception to the ten is the polyol sweeteners, which are flagged only for profiles with IBS, because that is the population the guidance addresses. What Verella checks for IBS.