Mealkin
Health and Allergy Notice
| Document | Health and Allergy Notice |
|---|---|
| Provider | Galix Studios Pty Ltd (ABN 22 703 560 141) |
| Application | Mealkin mobile application |
| Version | 1.2 |
| Last updated | 8 November 2026 |
| Status | Current |
Important health notice. Mealkin is a meal-planning aid. It is not a medical device, does not give medical advice and cannot guarantee that any food is free from an allergen. Always read the label of the product you are using, check with whoever prepares your food, and follow the advice of your doctor, allergy specialist or dietitian and any allergy action plan. In an emergency, follow the action plan and call 000 in Australia or your local emergency number.
Key points
- Mealkin compares ingredient names with the foods each person avoids. It reports what it found; it cannot tell you a food is safe.
- Read the label of the product you are using, every time, and ask whoever prepares your food.
- In an emergency, follow the person’s ASCIA Action Plan and call 000, or your local emergency number.
- Mealkin does not replace your doctor, allergy specialist or dietitian.
Contents
1.What Mealkin is, and is not
1.1
Mealkin is a meal-planning aid provided by Galix Studios Pty Ltd, ABN 22 703 560 141, a company based in Queensland, Australia. It helps you plan meals and shop around the foods that each person you plan for has chosen to avoid.
1.2
Mealkin is not a medical device. It does not diagnose, treat, cure, prevent or monitor any disease or condition, and it does not give medical, dietetic or nutritional advice.
1.3
Mealkin is not an emergency tool.
2.How Mealkin works
2.1
Profiles. For each person you can record allergies, intolerances, foods they prefer to avoid, and diets such as coeliac, vegetarian or halal. Each entry has a level:
- (a)Allergy: the person does not eat the food, and Mealkin also flags foods that often contain it (“check the label” foods) and “may contain” statements on products;
- (b)Intolerance: the person does not eat the food, but “check the label” foods and “may contain” statements are not flagged; and
- (c)Prefer to avoid: used for diets and preferences.
2.2
Matching. Mealkin reads the names of ingredients in recipes and on labels and compares them with a list of about 1,000 food names arranged into families. For example, ghee and whey belong to milk, satay to peanut, tahini to sesame, and soy sauce to both soy and wheat. About 70 foods, such as stock cubes, curry pastes and some sauces, are marked “check the label” because some brands contain an allergen and others do not.
2.3
Results. For each person, Mealkin shows one of these results:
“No avoided foods found” means Mealkin did not find any food in that person’s Profile in the information it had. It is not a statement that the food is safe.
“Swap available” means a food in their Profile was found, and Mealkin suggests a swap that it has checked against everyone eating.
“Check labels” means a food that often contains one of the person’s allergens was found, or a label says it “may contain” one. Read the label of the product you are using.
“Has an avoided food” means a food in that person’s Profile was found.
“Doesn’t love it” means a food the person dislikes was found.
2.4
Products. When you scan or type a barcode, Mealkin gets the product’s details from Open Food Facts, a free database that anyone can edit. You can also paste the ingredient list from the packet. Mealkin reads the ingredients, including those in brackets, and any “Contains” and “may contain” statements. When there is no ingredient list, Mealkin asks you to check the packet rather than showing a result. Mealkin reads ingredient names in English: when the only ingredient list is in another language, it shows Check labels for anyone with something to avoid.
2.5
Planning. When Mealkin fills a plan, it does not choose a meal with a “Has an avoided food” result for anyone eating it. Swaps are suggestions: check the label of the swap too.
2.6
Guests. You can add a guest to a meal, with a name and what they avoid, and Mealkin checks that meal for them exactly as it does for the people in your household. Mealkin checks only what you enter about a guest. Ask your guest what they avoid, and read labels for them as you would for family.
2.7
Budget and cost. If you set a weekly food budget, Mealkin prefers cheaper meals when it plans and shows about what the week will cost. This is an estimate from the prices you have entered yourself, a meal with no prices is not counted as free, and it never changes the allergen checks.
2.8
Amounts. Weights for cups and spoons (“about 150 g”) are typical figures for each food and are only estimates; a pantry “take out what you used” works from the amounts you typed. Neither is a measurement, and neither affects the allergen checks.
2.9
Shopping list. Beside an item, Mealkin notes when its name matches a food that someone with an allergy avoids (“Contains”) or a food that often contains one of their allergens (“Check the label”). The notes come from the item’s name, not from the product you buy, and an item without a note still needs its label read. A supermarket’s search, opened from the list, does not know the foods each person avoids.
2.10
“May contain”. By default, a “may contain” statement gives the result “Check labels” for a person with that allergy. If their specialist has advised them to avoid such foods, you can turn on the setting in their Profile that treats “may contain” as a food they avoid.
3.What Mealkin cannot do
3.1
Mealkin can be wrong. In particular:
- (a)its list of foods is not complete, and it may not recognise an ingredient written in an unusual way, misspelt or given a brand name;
- (b)a recipe may leave out an ingredient, or call for a product (such as a sauce or stock) whose ingredients vary by brand;
- (c)a recipe read from a photo, especially a handwritten one, may be misread: check every ingredient before you save it;
- (d)a household update from another phone replaces the plan for the days it covers and brings in that phone’s Profiles, including any change to someone’s allergies, so check each Profile afterwards;
- (e)Product Information may be wrong or out of date, and manufacturers change their recipes, sometimes without changing the barcode;
- (f)the same product can be made differently in a different pack size, factory or country;
- (g)Mealkin cannot see cross-contact in factories, shops, kitchens or restaurants; and
- (h)translations may be inaccurate.
3.2
Mealkin’s food list and swaps have not been reviewed by a medical professional.
4.Reading food labels
4.1
Read the label of the product you are actually using, every time. Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia recommends checking the label when you buy a product, when you unpack it and again before you cook or eat it.
4.2
In Australia and New Zealand, the Plain English Allergen Labelling rules require certain allergens to be named in bold in the ingredient list and in a “Contains” statement beside it.
4.3
A “Contains” statement only has to name the allergens the law requires. In Australia and New Zealand, for example, mustard and celery do not have to be declared, and other countries require different lists. If an allergen is not mentioned, that does not mean it is not there.
4.4
“May contain”, “may be present” and “made on equipment that also processes” statements are voluntary and are not regulated in Australia or New Zealand. A product without one is not necessarily free of cross-contact. Ask your allergy specialist how to treat these statements.
4.5
“Gluten free” has different legal meanings in different countries. In Australia and New Zealand it means no detectable gluten and no oats or malted gluten-containing cereals; in the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom it allows up to 20 parts per million. Mealkin cannot confirm that a food meets any of these standards.
5.Eating out and food prepared by others
5.1
Food cards help you explain a person’s needs. They support a conversation with the staff and the person preparing the food; they never replace it.
5.2
The translations in food cards have not been checked by a native speaker, and some allergen words have no exact equivalent. Show the English text as well. Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia publishes checked chef cards in many languages at allergyfacts.org.au.
5.3
If you are not sure whether a food contains an allergen, do not eat it.
6.Emergencies
6.1
If someone has an allergic reaction, follow their ASCIA Action Plan, which their doctor or nurse practitioner completes. Give an adrenaline (epinephrine) injector if the plan says to, and call an ambulance: 000 in Australia, 111 in New Zealand, 999 in the United Kingdom, 112 in the European Union or 911 in the United States.
6.2
Mealkin does not store, create or change action plans. The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA) publishes current action plans and first aid information at allergy.org.au.
7.Nutrition figures
7.1
Nutrition figures are approximate. They are worked out from the ingredients using figures from USDA FoodData Central, a public database of the United States Department of Agriculture, and our own estimates for foods it does not cover, with assumed quantities, and can differ materially from the real figures. They are for general interest only and are not suitable for medical diets, insulin dosing, kidney, PKU or infant diets, eating disorders or supervised weight loss.
8.Children
8.1
A parent or guardian decides what to record for a child and should follow the child’s doctor’s advice. Observe age advice for foods: for example, honey should not be given to babies under 12 months.
9.Your health professionals
9.1
Follow the advice of your doctor, allergy specialist or dietitian. If anything in Mealkin differs from their advice, follow their advice.
10.Telling us about errors
10.1
If Mealkin misses or misreads an ingredient, please tell us so we can improve the food list: Galix Studios Pty Ltd, ABN 22 703 560 141, Queensland, Australia. Email: support@galixstudios.com.
Health and Allergy Notice · Version 1.2 · Last updated 8 November 2026 · Galix Studios Pty Ltd