Carmine
Carmine carries a source-backed screening score of 3/5 and appears in 778 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Certain People Should Avoid.”
Source-backed answer
Carmine appears in 778 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Certain People Should Avoid.” No FDA SAFFA status is attached. Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.
- 778
- catalogued products
- #778
- usage rank of 247,206
- 257
- named brands represented
- 74%
- 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.
Carmine sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#778 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #778
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 1 other that also appear in exactly 778 products, listed in more products than 99.7% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 74%
- Averaged label depth puts Carmine in the lower half of the list (74% of list length, mean slot 21.3). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.
Computed from parsed product ingredient lists (Open Food Facts). The ranking covers 247,206 ingredients that appear at least once. Neither usage rank nor label depth is a safety clearance.
How to use this page
Audit the co-occurring flags first
58.9% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Carmine as the trigger. Open records such as 100% Juice From Concentrate; Activia 60 Calories Strawberry; Activia light blueberry and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 78.9/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 74% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
58.9% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 769 of 778 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 Carmine
Across the 778 products on this site that list Carmine, 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. Carrageenan shows up about 4.2x more often with Carmine than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Carmine products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carrageenan | 146 | 18.8% | 4.5% |
| Blue 1 | 137 | 17.6% | 4.2% |
| Titanium Dioxide | 132 | 17% | 2.1% |
| Red 40 | 121 | 15.6% | 5.4% |
| Yellow 5 | 100 | 12.9% | 4.8% |
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
Coloring
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 Carmine
Products Containing Carmine
16 busy labels from the 778 indexed products that list Carmine:
High-volume peers for Carmine beside “Jalapeno”
Carmine sits among other busy catalog rows (778 products, mean score 78.9/100). Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Jalapeno; Raspberry; Cranberry Juice Concentrate. 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
Nearest other ingredients by mean product screening score (floored at ≥50 scored products), distinct from the count row.
What to do with this Carmine record
Use the 778-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Review the sampled product records that list Carmine to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Open product sample
- Compare Carmine with a peer such as “Jalapeno” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Open a peer record
- Check the methodology for how FDA SAFFA, CSPI, and Open Food Facts rows are joined on this site. See source joins
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Carmine — common follow-ups
How should I read safety signals when Carmine sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
58.9% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Carmine is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Carmine scores 3/5 on this site's screening scale and CSPI lists it as "Certain People Should Avoid". None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Carmine? ▼
Carmine ranks in the top decile by product count (#778 of 247,206), appearing in 778 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What function does Carmine serve when it appears beside other flagged additives? ▼
Carmine is recorded as a coloring 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 (Carmine). 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.