May
May appears in 33 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
May appears in 33 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.
- 33
- catalogued products
- #6,578
- usage rank of 247,206
- 26
- 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.
May sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#6,578 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #6,578
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 168 others that also appear in exactly 33 products.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 57%
- Mean relative depth 57% across 33 parsed labels, slot 13.8 on average. May tends to sit in the lower half of the list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.
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.
Reading this ingredient record
Use prevalence before concern
Only 18.2% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: May spans 26 named brands and is led by the Undefined group. Start with Bacon bleu wedge chopped salad; Borden, pepper jack cheese with pretzels; Botanas Con Chile Y Limon when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 96.7/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.
26 named brands carry this ingredient
The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 25 of 29 classified products, leaving a meaningful remainder elsewhere. This breadth is why the page reports label depth, category, and product examples separately. Those dimensions help locate comparable products; combining them into a stronger safety claim would hide the variation the catalog actually contains.
Next check: compare label position across two brands before treating prevalence as equivalent exposure.
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 May
Products Containing May
16 busy labels from the 33 indexed products that list May:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass
High-volume peers for May: 33 products, mean screening score 96.7/100. Axes below stay distinct so count-neighbors do not duplicate score-neighbors.
Similar mean product score
Score-axis peers only, mean screening score among ingredients with ≥50 scored products, not a second count list.
What to do with this May record
Use the 33-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Open the product sample for May and read how the term sits on real packages. Browse linked labels
- Compare another ingredient’s source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Open a peer record
- Check the methodology for how FDA SAFFA, CSPI, and Open Food Facts rows are joined on this site. See source joins
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is there no FDA/CSPI verdict on May? ▼
This snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to May, so PlainFoodSafe does not present a source-backed safety verdict. The page reports catalog prevalence (#6,578 of 247,206 ingredients) and label position instead.
Which product shelves show up most often with May? ▼
May ranks in the top decile by product count (#6,578 of 247,206), appearing in 33 indexed products led by Undefined. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is May so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet May appears in 33 products (#6,578 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (May). 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.