Carrageenan
PlainFoodSafe flags Carrageenan as a controversial additive. CSPI Chemical Cuisine rates it “Caution.” It appears in 18,307 indexed US food products.
Source-backed answer
Carrageenan appears in 18,307 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Caution.” Its FDA SAFFA status is “GRAS.” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.
- 18,307
- catalogued products
- #51
- usage rank of 247,206
- 2,392
- named brands represented
- 67%
- 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.
Carrageenan: top-decile catalog footprint (#51 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #51
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 67%
- Mean relative depth 67% across 18,313 parsed labels, slot 17.4 on average. Carrageenan tends to sit in the lower half of the list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.
Ranks use Open Food Facts ingredient rows on this site’s refresh cycle. 247,206 ingredients with ≥1 product appearance enter the ranking. Prevalence and list depth are catalog facts, not toxicology.
How common is Carrageenan vs other flagged additives?
Number of indexed products containing each of the most common flagged additives - Carrageenan highlighted.
Reading this ingredient record
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 Carrageenan as the trigger. Open records such as 0% Milkfat Cottage Cheese small curd fat free; 0% Milkfat Fat Free Small Curd Cottage Cheese; 0% milkfat fat free small curd cottage cheese and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 83.5/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 67% 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 18305 of 18306 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 Carrageenan
Across the 18,307 products on this site that list Carrageenan, 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. Polysorbate 80 shows up about 10.5x more often with Carrageenan than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Carrageenan products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polysorbate 80 | 2,493 | 13.6% | 1.3% |
| Caramel Coloring | 2,095 | 11.4% | 5.7% |
| Red 40 | 1,556 | 8.5% | 5.4% |
| Sucralose | 1,362 | 7.4% | 2.7% |
| Blue 1 | 1,340 | 7.3% | 4.2% |
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
ANTICAKING AGENT OR FREE-FLOW AGENT, DRYING AGENT, EMULSIFIER OR EMULSIFIER SALT, FLAVOR ENHANCER, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, FORMULATION AID, HUMECTANT, PROCESSING AID, STABILIZER OR THICKENER, TEXTURIZER
Safety Concerns
Controversial additive
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 Carrageenan
Products Containing Carrageenan
High-volume slice (16 of 18,307) for products naming Carrageenan:
High-volume peers for Carrageenan beside “Modified Food Starch”
High-volume peers for Carrageenan: 18,307 products, mean screening score 83.5/100. Nearest count peers include “Modified Food Starch”, “Blue 1”, “Lactic Acid”. 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.
What to do with this Carrageenan record
18,307 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Carrageenan are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Check the listed products containing Carrageenan before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Browse linked labels
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Browse ingredient records
- 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.
Questions readers ask about Carrageenan
How should I read safety signals when Carrageenan 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 Carrageenan is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Carrageenan scores 2/5 on this site's screening scale and CSPI lists it as "Caution" with FDA SAFFA status "GRAS". None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Carrageenan? ▼
Carrageenan ranks in the top decile by product count (#51 of 247,206), appearing in 18,307 indexed products led by Desserts. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What function does Carrageenan serve when it appears beside other flagged additives? ▼
Carrageenan is recorded as a anticaking agent or free-flow agent, drying agent, emulsifier or emulsifier salt, flavor enhancer, flavoring agent or adjuvant, formulation aid, humectant, processing aid, stabilizer or thickener, texturizer 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 (Carrageenan). 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.