Editorial policy
The short version
SpiceHQ would rather say “we do not know” than produce a confident answer it cannot support. The rules below are enforced by automated checks that fail the build, not by good intentions.
What we will not publish
Standing refusals. These apply regardless of how much demand a question has.
No invented numbers
No fabricated search volumes, gram weights, shelf lives, Scoville figures or substitution ratios. Where a figure is genuinely a range it is published as one; where no defensible figure exists the gap is stated. The spice converter names the spices it cannot convert rather than applying an average, and the freshness adviser gives a band rather than a percentage because no measured decay curve exists.
No health claims
Traditional medicinal use is recorded as documented tradition where sources support it. It is never presented as a health benefit, and queries seeking health benefits are filtered out of the demand programme rather than answered.
No safety answer without competent evidence
A safety claim must cite a source of a kind competent for that specific class of question. Holding toxicology evidence does not license a veterinary answer.
No single recipe presented as authentic
Blends are recorded as variants with attribution, not as one canonical formula. Garam masala and ras el hanout have no single correct composition, and publishing one would misrepresent a living tradition.
No cultural flattening
Cuisine pages name the spices SpiceHQ can actually describe rather than printing a national list. A cuisine question counts as answered only when the page has profiled records behind the spices it names.
No page for a spelling
Synonyms, regional names and alternate spellings consolidate onto one canonical resource. Two pages are created only where there are genuinely two products — chilli powder and American chili powder being the case that proves the rule.
How safety questions are gated
Safety is the one area where a plausible answer is worse than no answer.
Safety questions are not one family. “Is too much nutmeg toxic”, “can dogs eat cumin”, “is cinnamon safe in pregnancy” and “does turmeric interact with my medication” require toxicological, veterinary, obstetric and pharmacological evidence respectively. Holding one does not license answering any of the others.
Each class therefore names the source kinds competent to support it, and a caution that cites nothing from that list cannot be published:
| Question class | Competent source kinds |
|---|---|
| Toxicity | toxicology, academic-paper, government, standards-body, book, reference-work |
| Allergens | government, standards-body, academic-paper, industry-body, book, reference-work |
| Contamination and adulteration | academic-paper, government, standards-body, industry-body, book, reference-work |
| Culinary handling | food-science, government, standards-body, academic-paper, book, reference-work |
| Regulatory limits | government, standards-body |
| Medication interactions | clinical-guidance, academic-paper, government |
| Pregnancy and breastfeeding | clinical-guidance, academic-paper, government |
| Pets and animals | veterinary, academic-paper, government |
SpiceHQ currently holds no veterinary, clinical or toxicology source. Every question about pets and pregnancy is therefore declined, and will stay declined until sources of the right kind are acquired. That is why safety coverage is low and why it is not being chased.
Reading the evidence labels
Every claim carries one, and they mean different things.
Grades run from established fact through strong and reasonable evidence to traditional practice, culinary convention and editorial judgement. The methodology page sets out each one with examples.
Absences are graded too, because they are not all the same. “Not yet established” and “not applicable” are different statements — the Scoville rating of black pepper is not unknown, it is a category error, and the site says so rather than leaving a blank.
Commercial independence
Stated before any commercial content exists rather than after.
No commercial relationship influences an evidence grade, a substitution recommendation or a safety position. Safety and evidence surfaces are excluded from carrying commercial content structurally, in code, rather than by editorial care. The disclosure page has the detail.