Menthol
Menthol carries a source-backed screening score of 3/5 and appears in 79 indexed US food products.
Source-backed answer
Menthol appears in 79 catalogued products. CSPI has no rating attached in this snapshot. 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.
- 79
- catalogued products
- #3,681
- usage rank of 247,206
- 35
- named brands represented
- 64%
- 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 Menthol - usage rank #3,681
- Usage rank
- #3,681
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 27 others that also appear in exactly 79 products, listed in more products than 98.5% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 64%
- Mean relative depth 64% across 79 parsed labels, slot 10.7 on average. Menthol tends to sit in the lower half of the list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.
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.
How to use this page
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 28 of 79 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare Berry Medley; Beyond Breath; Bondi Boost to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 50–100 score range to Menthol itself. The ingredient most often sits in the lower half of the list, and Snacks supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
28 of 79 linked records have some flagged component
All 73 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 50–100 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 Menthol
Across the 79 products on this site that list Menthol, 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 4.7x more often with Menthol than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Menthol products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sucralose | 10 | 12.7% | 2.7% |
| Acesulfame Potassium | 5 | 6.3% | 1.8% |
| Aspartame | 5 | 6.3% | 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
FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT
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 Menthol
Products Containing Menthol
High-volume slice (16 of 79) for products naming Menthol:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Organic Acerola Cherry Extract”)
High-volume peers for Menthol: 79 products, mean screening score 93/100. Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Organic Acerola Cherry Extract; Calcium Chloride And Citric Acid; Dry Garlic. 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.
Using the Menthol evidence
79 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Menthol are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Check the listed products containing Menthol before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. See listed products
- Place Menthol next to “Calcium Chloride And Citric Acid” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Compare a peer
- Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. See source joins
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Menthol carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. Menthol itself carries 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 Menthol? ▼
Menthol ranks in the top decile by product count (#3,681 of 247,206), appearing in 79 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What does Menthol do in food? ▼
Menthol is recorded as a flavoring agent or adjuvant in source technical-effect fields.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Menthol). 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.