Lucy's Dietary Alert System: How It Protects You
The Lucy Team
We're the team behind Ask Lucy — travellers, food lovers, and language enthusiasts building an AI companion that helps you explore the world with confidence.
How the Alert System Works
When you set up your dietary profile in Lucy, you tell her about your allergies, intolerances, and dietary preferences — whether that is a peanut allergy, celiac disease, veganism, or a combination. Lucy stores this information and applies it automatically to every menu she translates.
What Lucy Detects
Direct allergens — Dishes that list your allergen as an ingredient.
Hidden allergens — Ingredients that typically contain your allergen (e.g., pesto contains nuts, soy sauce contains wheat).
Cross-contamination risks — Dishes that share preparation methods with allergen-containing items.
Cultural cooking practices — Regional habits that introduce allergens (e.g., Thai cooking uses peanut oil, French cooking uses butter liberally).
Clear Visual Alerts
When Lucy translates a menu, each dish gets a safety indicator. Safe dishes are clearly marked. Risky dishes are flagged with a warning and an explanation of why. Definite allergen matches are highlighted so they cannot be missed.
Why This Matters
A standard translation app tells you the words. Lucy tells you if those words could make you sick. For travelers with food allergies, this is not a convenience feature — it is a safety system that works in every language, at every restaurant, in every country.