How to Read Food Labels in a Foreign Language (Vegan or Vegetarian)

You move abroad, or you travel for work, and suddenly the grocery store is a wall of words you cannot read. For a vegan or vegetarian, that is not just inconvenient. It is the difference between eating safely and eating an animal product by accident.

Key Takeaways

• Learn the handful of animal-derived words for each language, starting with milk, egg, meat, fish and gelatin.
• Watch the allergen section, which usually lists milk, egg and fish in a recognizable, bolded form.
• Use a translation app or a scanner that reads the label and flags ingredients against your diet.
• When in doubt, lean on a vegan certification logo or a known-safe product.

TL;DR: Reading a foreign label comes down to a short list of animal words per language, plus a tool that does the checking for you. A scanner that translates and flags ingredients is the fastest way to shop safely.

Learn the short list, not the whole language

You do not need to learn a language to shop in it. You need a short list of animal-derived words. For most European languages, the big ones are:

Learn these five or six words per language and you will catch most animal ingredients on sight.

Use the allergen section

Most packaged food has an allergen statement that bolds or lists common allergens, including milk, egg and fish. In the European Union, these allergens are required to be emphasized, which makes them easy to spot even if you cannot read the rest of the label. A vegan travel guide to Japan makes the same point: the allergen and ingredient sections are the two places to look (Vegetarian Resource Group, retrieved 2026-08-25).

The tool shortcut

This is where a scanner changes everything. Instead of decoding a label by hand, you point your phone at it, and the app reads the text, translates it, and flags the ingredients against your diet. A guide to navigating grocery stores abroad describes exactly this workflow: scan, translate, and check against your diet, rather than relying on memory (BorderPilot, retrieved 2026-08-25).

The Verify Veg app does this out of the box. It reads a barcode or a photographed ingredient list, translates it, and flags the animal-derived ingredients against whatever diet you have set, from vegan to halal to a custom list of 200 forbidden ingredients. It also works offline after you download a language, which matters when you are in a store with no signal.

The fallback: certification logos

When you cannot check, look for a vegan or vegetarian certification logo on the package. These logos are consistent across countries and languages, so they work even when you cannot read a word. A V-label, a Vegan Society sunflower, or a local equivalent means the product is plant-based.

A simple routine

1. Scan the allergen section for milk, egg and fish.
2. Scan the ingredient list for the few animal words you have memorized.
3. Point a scanner app at the label to translate and flag the rest.
4. Fall back on a vegan logo when the label is too small or too dense.

The bottom line

You do not need to learn a language to shop in it. Memorize five or six animal words, read the allergen section, and let a scanner do the heavy lifting. That turns a foreign grocery store from a minefield into a solvable, five-second check.

Check before you eat. The Verify Veg app scans a barcode or reads an ingredient list from a photo and flags ingredients against your diet (vegan, vegetarian, halal, kosher, Jain and more). Download on the App Store - Android is coming soon.

Written by Samir Narain, founder of Verify Veg. Verify Veg helps people check packaged food against their diet by scanning barcodes and reading ingredient lists from photos.

Note: Verify Veg provides ingredient-based compatibility checks, not certification. Ingredient sources can vary by manufacturer, so always confirm with the brand or vendor.