L-methionine

L-methionine carries a source-backed screening score of 3/5 and appears in 78 indexed US food products.

Source-backed answer

L-methionine appears in 78 catalogued products. CSPI has no rating attached in this snapshot. Its FDA SAFFA status is “Approved.” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.

78
catalogued products
#3,709
usage rank of 247,206
39
named brands represented
49%
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.

High-volume listing for L-methionine - usage rank #3,709

Usage rank
#3,709
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 30 others that also appear in exactly 78 products, listed in more products than 98.5% of them.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
49%
Averaged label depth puts L-methionine in the upper half of the list (49% of list length, mean slot 16.8). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.

Derived by this site from the ingredient lists of every catalogued product (Open Food Facts), recomputed on each data refresh. 247,206 ingredients have at least one appearance and are ranked here. Usage and list position describe prevalence, not safety.

What this page can and cannot answer

Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood

This is a mixed product neighborhood: 25 of 78 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare ACTIVE Essential Amino Acid Blend; Advanced Amino Formula; Advanced Amino Formula to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 70–100 score range to L-methionine itself. The ingredient most often sits in the upper half of the list, and Dietary supplements supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.

25 of 78 linked records have some flagged component

All 76 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 70–100 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 L-methionine

Across the 78 products on this site that list L-methionine, 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. Sucralose shows up about 8.6x more often with L-methionine than in the catalogue at large.

Sucralose: +20.4ppSucralose+20.4ppCarrageenan: +3.2ppCarrageenan+3.2ppMonk fruit extract: +7.2ppMonk fruit extract+7.2ppAcesulfame Potassium: +4.6ppAcesulfame Potassium+4.6pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, L-methionine products only. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists.
Chart values as text

Unit: percentage points above/below baseline. Data current as of September 2026.

Sucralose
20.4pp
Carrageenan
3.2pp
Monk fruit extract
7.2pp
Acesulfame Potassium
4.6pp
Additive Shared products Share of L-methionine products Share of all products
Sucralose 18 23.1% 2.7%
Carrageenan 6 7.7% 4.5%
Monk fruit extract 6 7.7% 0.5%
Acesulfame Potassium 5 6.4% 1.8%

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

FLAVOR ENHANCER, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, NUTRIENT SUPPLEMENT

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 L-methionine

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 L-methionine
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.

L-methionine vs other top-decile catalog footprints

High-volume peers for L-methionine: 78 products, mean screening score 95/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Black Sesame Seed · Blueberry Juice From Concentrate · Organic Cane. 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 L-methionine page

Use the 78-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.

  • Check the listed products containing L-methionine before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Browse linked labels
  • Compare L-methionine with a peer such as “Black Sesame Seed” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Compare a peer
  • 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.

L-methionine — common follow-ups

Does L-methionine carry its own safety label in this catalog?

This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. L-methionine itself carries and FDA SAFFA status "Approved" 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 L-methionine?

L-methionine ranks in the top decile by product count (#3,709 of 247,206), appearing in 78 indexed products led by Dietary supplements. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

What does L-methionine do in food?

L-methionine is recorded as a flavor enhancer, flavoring agent or adjuvant, nutrient supplement in source technical-effect fields.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (L-methionine). 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.