American Cheese
American Cheese appears in 678 indexed US food products. No FDA SAFFA status or CSPI rating is attached in this snapshot, so this page reports prevalence rather than a safety verdict.
What the data can answer
American Cheese appears in 678 catalogued products, but this snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to it. This page therefore cannot answer whether the ingredient is safe from those sources. It can show how often it occurs, where it tends to sit on labels, and which kinds of products contain it.
- 678
- catalogued products
- #853
- usage rank of 247,206
- 173
- named brands represented
- 22%
- average depth down ingredient lists
Catalog prevalence comes from Open Food Facts ingredient lists. FDA SAFFA and CSPI Chemical Cuisine labels are shown only when the source record contains them.
What this page can and cannot answer
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 182 of 678 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 2% Milk American Singles Reduced Fat Pasteurized Process Cheese Food; A crunchy coating filled with smoky bacon and a creamy blend of six cheeses bites, bacon mac & cheese; Abbyland, Brat 'N Cheddar Smoked Sausage to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to American Cheese itself. The ingredient most often sits near the top of the captured list, and Dairies supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
182 of 678 linked records have some flagged component
All 666 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 0–100 score spread more informative than the average alone: investigate the low end, identify the actual flagged row, and compare it with a similar unflagged formulation before drawing a conclusion.
Next check: pair one flagged product with a similar unflagged product from the same shelf category.
High-volume listing for American Cheese - usage rank #853
- Usage rank
- #853
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 1 other that also appear in exactly 678 products, listed in more products than 99.7% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 22%
- Averaged label depth puts American Cheese near the top of the captured list (22% of list length, mean slot 11.3). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.
Derived by this site from the ingredient lists of every catalogued product (Open Food Facts), recomputed on each data refresh. 247,206 ingredients have at least one appearance and are ranked here. Usage and list position describe prevalence, not safety.
What else is usually in the same product as American Cheese
Across the 678 products on this site that list American Cheese, these flagged additives appear alongside it most often. The comparison column is how often each one appears across every product with a parsed ingredient list, so the two figures are measured over the same set. Sodium Nitrite shows up about 4.9x more often with American Cheese than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of American Cheese products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium Nitrite | 80 | 11.8% | 2.4% |
| Caramel Coloring | 49 | 7.2% | 5.7% |
| Carrageenan | 43 | 6.3% | 4.5% |
| Yellow 5 | 21 | 3.1% | 4.8% |
| Potassium Bromate | 18 | 2.7% | 0.1% |
Co-occurrence describes what manufacturers formulate together. It is not a claim that these additives interact, and it carries no regulatory meaning. Counted over products with parsed ingredient lists; Open Food Facts, 2026-09-01.
How do the sampled products compare?
Each point is one of the 16 sampled products listed below: its overall safety score against how many separately flagged ingredients its label carries. Bubble size is the number of ingredient rows the label actually resolved to.
Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing American Cheese
Products Containing American Cheese
A sample of 16 high-volume listings among the 678 indexed products containing American Cheese:
High-volume peers for American Cheese beside “Sesame Seed”
High-volume peers for American Cheese: 678 products, mean screening score 93.6/100. Nearest count peers include “Sesame Seed”, “Chocolate Processed With Alkali”, “Feta Cheese”. Axes below stay distinct so count-neighbors do not duplicate score-neighbors.
Similar product count
Nearest other ingredients by Open Food Facts product count (floored at ≥50).
Similar mean product score
Nearest other ingredients by mean product screening score (floored at ≥50 scored products), distinct from the count row.
Using the American Cheese evidence
Start from American Cheese's 678 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.
- Review the sampled product records that list American Cheese to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. See listed products
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Browse ingredient records
- Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. Read the methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does American Cheese carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. This snapshot does not attach a standalone FDA/CSPI verdict to American Cheese. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with American Cheese? ▼
American Cheese ranks in the top decile by product count (#853 of 247,206), appearing in 678 indexed products led by Dairies. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is American Cheese so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet American Cheese appears in 678 products (#853 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (American Cheese). Safety ratings: CSPI Chemical Cuisine; product presence: Open Food Facts via PlainFoodSafe (September 2026). Figures are computed from those sources, no editor-typed counts. Methodology · State regulations.