Maltodextrin
Maltodextrin carries a source-backed screening score of 5/5 and appears in 33,252 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Safe.”
Source-backed answer
Maltodextrin appears in 33,252 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Safe.” 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.
- 33,252
- catalogued products
- #23
- usage rank of 247,206
- 4,507
- named brands represented
- 48%
- 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.
Maltodextrin sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#23 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #23
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 48%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 33,310 products listing it (mean slot 14.9). Maltodextrin 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.
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: 15068 of 33252 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 0% Milkfat Cottage Cheese small curd fat free; 0% Milkfat Fat Free Small Curd Cottage Cheese; 0% milkfat fat free small curd cottage cheese to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Maltodextrin 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.
15068 of 33,252 linked records have some flagged component
All 33243 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 Maltodextrin
Across the 33,252 products on this site that list Maltodextrin, 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 2.6x more often with Maltodextrin than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Maltodextrin products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 4,919 | 14.8% | 5.7% |
| Red 40 | 3,367 | 10.1% | 5.4% |
| Yellow 5 | 3,274 | 9.8% | 4.8% |
| Carrageenan | 3,096 | 9.3% | 4.5% |
| Yellow 6 | 2,752 | 8.3% | 3.4% |
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.
Function
ANTICAKING AGENT OR FREE-FLOW AGENT, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, HUMECTANT, NUTRIENT SUPPLEMENT, NUTRITIVE SWEETENER, SOLVENT OR VEHICLE, STABILIZER OR THICKENER, SURFACE-ACTIVE AGENT, 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 Maltodextrin
Products Containing Maltodextrin
High-volume slice (16 of 33,252) for products naming Maltodextrin:
Maltodextrin vs other top-decile catalog footprints
Top-decile company for Maltodextrin: 33,252 listings averaging 84.8/100. Nearest count peers include “Thiamine Mononitrate”, “Reduced Iron”, “Canola Oil”.
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 Maltodextrin page
33,252 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Maltodextrin are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Review the sampled product records that list Maltodextrin to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Browse linked labels
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Open a peer record
- Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. Open methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Maltodextrin carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. Maltodextrin itself carries a CSPI "Safe" 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 Maltodextrin? ▼
Maltodextrin ranks in the top decile by product count (#23 of 247,206), appearing in 33,252 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What does Maltodextrin do in food? ▼
Maltodextrin is recorded as a anticaking agent or free-flow agent, flavoring agent or adjuvant, humectant, nutrient supplement, nutritive sweetener, solvent or vehicle, stabilizer or thickener, surface-active agent, texturizer in source technical-effect fields.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Maltodextrin). 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.