Glutamate
Glutamate appears in 40 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
Glutamate appears in 40 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.
- 40
- catalogued products
- #5,797
- usage rank of 247,206
- 29
- named brands represented
- 57%
- 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.
Reading this ingredient record
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 13 of 40 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare Ahold, light italian bread; Au Gratin Potatoes; Baby & Me 2 Prenatal Multi to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 45–100 score range to Glutamate itself. The ingredient most often sits in the lower half of the list, and Condiments supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
13 of 40 linked records have some flagged component
All 40 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 45–100 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.
High-volume listing for Glutamate - usage rank #5,797
- Usage rank
- #5,797
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 95 others that also appear in exactly 40 products.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 57%
- Averaged label depth puts Glutamate in the lower half of the list (57% of list length, mean slot 16.3). 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.
What else is usually in the same product as Glutamate
Across the 40 products on this site that list Glutamate, 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. Sodium Nitrite shows up about 7.3x more often with Glutamate than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Glutamate products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium Nitrite | 7 | 17.5% | 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 Glutamate
Products Containing Glutamate
16 busy labels from the 40 indexed products that list Glutamate:
High-volume peers for Glutamate
Top-decile company for Glutamate: 40 listings averaging 93.8/100.
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 Glutamate page
Use the 40-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Check the listed products containing Glutamate before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. See listed products
- Browse another ingredient record and keep the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields in view. Browse ingredient records
- Check the methodology for how FDA SAFFA, CSPI, and Open Food Facts rows are joined on this site. 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 Glutamate
Does Glutamate carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. This snapshot does not attach a standalone FDA/CSPI verdict to Glutamate. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with Glutamate? ▼
Glutamate ranks in the top decile by product count (#5,797 of 247,206), appearing in 40 indexed products led by Condiments. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Glutamate so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Glutamate appears in 40 products (#5,797 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Glutamate). 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.