Lactose
Lactose carries a source-backed screening score of 3/5 and appears in 6,646 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Certain People Should Avoid.”
Source-backed answer
Lactose appears in 6,646 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Certain People Should Avoid.” 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.
- 6,646
- catalogued products
- #171
- usage rank of 247,206
- 1,183
- named brands represented
- 47%
- 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.
Lactose: top-decile catalog footprint (#171 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #171
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.9% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 47%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 6,646 products listing it (mean slot 14.4). Lactose usually falls in the upper half of the 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 this page can and cannot answer
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 2754 of 6646 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 100 Grand fun size; 11.00Oz Cra Cool Ranch; 2 Peanut Butter Cups to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Lactose itself. The ingredient most often sits in the upper half of the list, and Snacks supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
2754 of 6,646 linked records have some flagged component
All 6640 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 Lactose
Across the 6,646 products on this site that list Lactose, 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. Yellow 5 shows up about 4.4x more often with Lactose than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Lactose products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow 5 | 1,415 | 21.3% | 4.8% |
| Red 40 | 1,355 | 20.4% | 5.4% |
| Yellow 6 | 1,283 | 19.3% | 3.4% |
| Blue 1 | 1,237 | 18.6% | 4.2% |
| Blue 2 | 887 | 13.3% | 0.9% |
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, FORMULATION AID, LUBRICANT OR RELEASE AGENT, MALTING OR FERMENTING AID, NUTRITIVE SWEETENER, OXIDIZING OR REDUCING AGENT, SOLVENT OR VEHICLE, STABILIZER OR THICKENER, SURFACE-ACTIVE AGENT
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 Lactose
Products Containing Lactose
16 busy labels from the 6,646 indexed products that list Lactose:
Lactose vs other top-decile catalog footprints
Top-decile company for Lactose: 6,646 listings averaging 77/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Potassium Chloride · Preservatives · Whole Wheat Flour.
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.
What to do with this Lactose record
6,646 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Lactose are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Open the product sample for Lactose and read how the term sits on real packages. Browse linked labels
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Open a peer record
- 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 Lactose
Does Lactose carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. Lactose itself carries a CSPI "Certain People Should Avoid" rating 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 Lactose? ▼
Lactose ranks in the top decile by product count (#171 of 247,206), appearing in 6,646 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What does Lactose do in food? ▼
Lactose is recorded as a flavor enhancer, flavoring agent or adjuvant, formulation aid, lubricant or release agent, malting or fermenting aid, nutritive sweetener, oxidizing or reducing agent, solvent or vehicle, stabilizer or thickener, surface-active agent in source technical-effect fields.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Lactose). 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.