Cereal
Cereal appears in 166 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
Cereal appears in 166 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.
- 166
- catalogued products
- #2,196
- usage rank of 247,206
- 45
- named brands represented
- 17%
- 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.
How to use this page
Audit the co-occurring flags first
83.1% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Cereal as the trigger. Open records such as 90 Calorie Cereal Bars; Barre Lucky Charms Treats King Size; Bean & Cheese Burritos and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 79.4/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 17% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
83.1% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 159 of 165 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.
High-volume listing for Cereal - usage rank #2,196
- Usage rank
- #2,196
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 11 others that also appear in exactly 166 products, listed in more products than 99.1% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 17%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 166 products listing it (mean slot 6.9). Cereal usually falls near the top of the captured list; this position does not measure its amount because source formatting, compound ingredients and labeling exceptions vary.
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.
What else is usually in the same product as Cereal
Across the 166 products on this site that list Cereal, 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. Caramel Coloring shows up about 7.8x more often with Cereal than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Cereal products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 74 | 44.6% | 5.7% |
| Blue 1 | 33 | 19.9% | 4.2% |
| Red 40 | 29 | 17.5% | 5.4% |
| BHT | 28 | 16.9% | 1.1% |
| Sodium Nitrite | 16 | 9.6% | 2.4% |
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 Cereal
Products Containing Cereal
16 busy labels from the 166 indexed products that list Cereal:
High-volume peers for Cereal beside “Aged Red Cayenne Peppers”
Cereal sits among other busy catalog rows (166 products, mean score 79.4/100). Nearest count peers include “Aged Red Cayenne Peppers”, “Natural Almond Flavor”, “Organic Barley Grass”. 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
Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.
Next steps from the Cereal page
166 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Cereal are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Check the listed products containing Cereal before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. See listed products
- Place Cereal next to “Natural Almond Flavor” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Browse ingredient records
- See the join rules behind screening scores before reading them as dietary advice. Read the methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Questions readers ask about Cereal
How should I read safety signals when Cereal sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
83.1% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Cereal is the trigger. None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Cereal? ▼
Cereal ranks in the top decile by product count (#2,196 of 247,206), appearing in 166 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Cereal so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Cereal appears in 166 products (#2,196 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Cereal). 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.