Banned substance · High concern

Brominated Vegetable Oil

PlainFoodSafe flags Brominated Vegetable Oil as a banned substance. CSPI Chemical Cuisine rates it “Avoid.” It appears in 535 indexed US food products. The FDA restriction took effect2024-07-01.

Source-backed answer

Brominated Vegetable Oil appears in 535 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Avoid.” Its FDA SAFFA status is “Banned (FDA revoked 2024).” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.

535
catalogued products
#1,008
usage rank of 247,206
130
named brands represented
91%
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.

High-volume listing for Brominated Vegetable Oil - usage rank #1,008

Usage rank
#1,008
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.6% of them.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
91%
Averaged label depth puts Brominated Vegetable Oil near the end of the captured list (91% of list length, mean slot 11.7). 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.

How common is Brominated Vegetable Oil vs other flagged additives?

Number of indexed products containing each of the most common flagged additives - Brominated Vegetable Oil highlighted.

Caramel Coloring: 23161 · 100% of the leaderCaramel Coloring23161Red 40: 22216 · 96% of the leaderRed 4022216Yellow 5: 19566 · 84% of the leaderYellow 519566Carrageenan: 18307 · 79% of the leaderCarrageenan18307Blue 1: 17024 · 74% of the leaderBlue 117024Yellow 6: 13787 · 60% of the leaderYellow 613787Sucralose: 10913 · 47% of the leaderSucralose10913Brominated Vegetable Oil: 535 · 2% of the leaderBrominated Vegetable Oil535
Indexed products containing each flagged additive. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists × FDA SAFFA × CSPI Chemical Cuisine.
Chart values as text

Unit: indexed products. Data current as of September 2026.

Caramel Coloring
23161
Red 40
22216
Yellow 5
19566
Carrageenan
18307
Blue 1
17024
Yellow 6
13787
Sucralose
10913
Brominated Vegetable Oil
535

How to use this page

Audit the co-occurring flags first

100% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Brominated Vegetable Oil as the trigger. Open records such as Adirondack beverages, soda, orange; Adirondack beverages, soda, orange; Adirondack beverages, soda, tropical punch and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 34.4/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 91% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.

100% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient

Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 535 of 535 NOVA-tagged records. That describes the surrounding products, not the substance. For a useful comparison, hold category and processing level constant, then inspect which named component changes alongside the caution flag; otherwise the product mix will confound the ingredient question.

Next check: open the lowest-scoring linked formulation and locate the exact caution-marked component.

What else is usually in the same product as Brominated Vegetable Oil

Across the 535 products on this site that list Brominated Vegetable Oil, 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. Red 40 shows up about 9.1x more often with Brominated Vegetable Oil than in the catalogue at large.

Red 40: +43.8ppRed 40+43.8ppYellow 6: +36.2ppYellow 6+36.2ppYellow 5: +28.8ppYellow 5+28.8ppAcesulfame Potassium: +15.4ppAcesulfame Potassium+15.4ppAspartame: +15.5ppAspartame+15.5pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Brominated Vegetable Oil products only. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists.
Chart values as text

Unit: percentage points above/below baseline. Data current as of September 2026.

Red 40
43.8pp
Yellow 6
36.2pp
Yellow 5
28.8pp
Acesulfame Potassium
15.4pp
Aspartame
15.5pp
Additive Shared products Share of Brominated Vegetable Oil products Share of all products
Red 40 263 49.2% 5.4%
Yellow 6 212 39.6% 3.4%
Yellow 5 180 33.6% 4.8%
Acesulfame Potassium 92 17.2% 1.8%
Aspartame 88 16.4% 0.9%

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.

Function

Emulsifier

Safety Concerns

Banned substance

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 Brominated Vegetable Oil

Per-product safety score and flagged-ingredient count from the same sampled listings shown below. Bubble size = linked ingredient rows. Source: Open Food Facts labels x FDA SAFFA x CSPI Chemical Cuisine. 2×2 strategic matrix plotting 16 entities by Safety score (X) and Flagged ingredients on label (Y), with a crosshair dividing the plot into four quadrants. High score, still flaggedLow score, more flaggedHigh score, fewer flaggedLow score, fewer flagged 020406080 012345 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Brominated Vegetable Oil
Per-product safety score and flagged-ingredient count from the same sampled listings shown below. Bubble size = linked ingredient rows. Source: Open Food Facts labels x FDA SAFFA x CSPI Chemical Cuisine.

High-volume peers for Brominated Vegetable Oil beside “Glycerol Ester Of Rosin”

Brominated Vegetable Oil sits among other busy catalog rows (535 products, mean score 34.4/100). Comparable product-count neighbours: Glycerol Ester Of Rosin · Herbs · Propylene Glycol Monoesters. Count peers and score peers are listed separately on purpose.

Similar product count

Nearest other ingredients by Open Food Facts product count (floored at ≥50).

Similar mean product score

Score-axis peers only, mean screening score among ingredients with ≥50 scored products, not a second count list.

What to do with this Brominated Vegetable Oil record

535 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Brominated Vegetable Oil are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.

  • Open the product sample for Brominated Vegetable Oil and read how the term sits on real packages. Browse linked labels
  • Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Open a peer record
  • Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. See source joins

This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.

Questions readers ask about Brominated Vegetable Oil

How should I read safety signals when Brominated Vegetable Oil sits in heavily flagged products?

100% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Brominated Vegetable Oil is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Brominated Vegetable Oil scores 1/5 on this site's screening scale and CSPI lists it as "Avoid" with FDA SAFFA status "Banned (FDA revoked 2024)". None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.

Which product shelves show up most often with Brominated Vegetable Oil?

Brominated Vegetable Oil ranks in the top decile by product count (#1,008 of 247,206), appearing in 535 indexed products led by Beverages. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

What function does Brominated Vegetable Oil serve when it appears beside other flagged additives?

Brominated Vegetable Oil is recorded as a emulsifier in source technical-effect fields. In high co-flag products, that function coexists with other caution-marked components — inspect the full list rather than isolating this role.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Brominated Vegetable Oil). 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.