Cornstarch

Cornstarch carries a source-backed screening score of 3/5 and appears in 17,589 indexed US food products.

Source-backed answer

Cornstarch appears in 17,589 catalogued products. CSPI has no rating attached in this snapshot. 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.

17,589
catalogued products
#48
usage rank of 247,206
2,168
named brands represented
52%
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.

Cornstarch sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#48 / 247,206)

Usage rank
#48
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
52%
Averaged label depth puts Cornstarch in the lower half of the list (52% of list length, mean slot 16.4). 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.

What this page can and cannot answer

Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood

This is a mixed product neighborhood: 8502 of 17589 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 1% chocolate lowfat milk; 1% Chocolate Milk; 1% Low Fat Chocolate Milk to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Cornstarch itself. The ingredient most often sits in the lower half of the list, and Snacks supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.

8502 of 17,589 linked records have some flagged component

All 17458 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.

What else is usually in the same product as Cornstarch

Across the 17,589 products on this site that list Cornstarch, 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 3.6x more often with Cornstarch than in the catalogue at large.

Red 40: +14.1ppRed 40+14.1ppYellow 5: +13.4ppYellow 5+13.4ppBlue 1: +12.9ppBlue 1+12.9ppYellow 6: +12ppYellow 6+12ppCaramel Coloring: +6.7ppCaramel Coloring+6.7pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Cornstarch 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
14.1pp
Yellow 5
13.4pp
Blue 1
12.9pp
Yellow 6
12pp
Caramel Coloring
6.7pp
Additive Shared products Share of Cornstarch products Share of all products
Red 40 3,436 19.5% 5.4%
Yellow 5 3,200 18.2% 4.8%
Blue 1 3,015 17.1% 4.2%
Yellow 6 2,704 15.4% 3.4%
Caramel Coloring 2,177 12.4% 5.7%

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, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, FORMULATION AID, HUMECTANT, NON-NUTRITIVE SWEETENER, NUTRITIVE SWEETENER, SOLVENT OR VEHICLE, STABILIZER OR THICKENER, TEXTURIZER

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 Cornstarch

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 60708090100110 00.511.522.5 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Cornstarch
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.

Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Yeast Extract”)

High-volume peers for Cornstarch: 17,589 products, mean screening score 76.6/100. Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Yeast Extract; Potassium Sorbate; Honey. 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

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

Next steps from the Cornstarch page

Start from Cornstarch's 17,589 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.

  • Open the product sample for Cornstarch and read how the term sits on real packages. See listed products
  • Compare Cornstarch with a peer such as “Yeast Extract” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Compare a peer
  • 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.

Cornstarch — common follow-ups

Does Cornstarch carry its own safety label in this catalog?

This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. Cornstarch itself carries and FDA SAFFA status "GRAS" where the source record supplies them. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.

Which product shelves show up most often with Cornstarch?

Cornstarch ranks in the top decile by product count (#48 of 247,206), appearing in 17,589 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

What does Cornstarch do in food?

Cornstarch is recorded as a anticaking agent or free-flow agent, drying agent, flavoring agent or adjuvant, formulation aid, humectant, non-nutritive sweetener, nutritive sweetener, solvent or vehicle, stabilizer or thickener, texturizer in source technical-effect fields.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Cornstarch). 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.