"You are amazing, this has saved me so much time when grocery shopping!"
— Austin, a user who reached out with feedback
"It's been a great tool since starting my journey! You take a pic of the nutrition/ingredients, and it'll warn you of anything questionable or not vegan. 😁"
— Ashe, a Vegan For Beginners Facebook Group member
"Use a vegan app when you go shopping, I use WhatsVegan."
— Dóra, a Vegan For Beginners Facebook Group member
Learn more
"You are amazing, this has saved me so much time when grocery shopping!"
— Austin, a user who reached out with feedback
"It's been a great tool since starting my journey! You take a pic of the nutrition/ingredients, and it'll warn you of anything questionable or not vegan. 😁"
— Ashe, a Vegan For Beginners Facebook Group member
"Use a vegan app when you go shopping, I use WhatsVegan."
— Dóra, a Vegan For Beginners Facebook Group member
So, what is semen?
"Semen" on an ingredient label is the Latin botanical term for "seed." It appears most frequently on dietary supplements, herbal teas, traditional herbal medicines, and cosmetics where ingredients are cataloged using pharmaceutical or taxonomic Latin nomenclature. Common examples include Semen lini for flaxseed, Semen armeniacae for apricot kernel, and Semen cassiae for cassia seed.
These ingredients are derived entirely from flowering plants. The seeds are harvested, cleaned, and dried, after which they are packaged whole, milled into powders, or processed into concentrated botanical extracts. In packaged foods and beverages, they primarily serve as herbal infusions, flavoring agents, or sources of vegetable oils and dietary fiber.
semen on product labels is vegan because the designation refers exclusively to plant seeds within botanical and pharmacopeial labeling conventions. The term does not indicate any animal substance or animal byproduct. Because these materials originate entirely from plants, products listing this ingredient meet vegan standards.
We've built a vegan ingredients scanner that classifies food ingredients as "vegan", "non-vegan", or "potentially vegan".
It allows you to avoid non-vegan ingredients - just take a picture of a product's ingredient list, and the app tells you if the product is vegan or not.
Check out other ingredients: