Papain

Papain carries a source-backed screening score of 5/5 and appears in 224 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Safe.”

Source-backed answer

Papain appears in 224 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Safe.” No FDA SAFFA status is attached. Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.

224
catalogued products
#1,809
usage rank of 247,206
98
named brands represented
79%
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 Papain - usage rank #1,809

Usage rank
#1,809
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 3 others that also appear in exactly 224 products, listed in more products than 99.3% of them.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
79%
Mean relative depth 79% across 224 parsed labels, slot 22.2 on average. Papain tends to sit near the end of the captured list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.

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.

How to use this page

Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood

This is a mixed product neighborhood: 49 of 224 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 100% Mass Gainer Chocolate Fudge Brownie; 100% Mass Gainer Vanilla Milkshake; 100% whey protein blend to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 50–100 score range to Papain itself. The ingredient most often sits near the end of the captured list, and Snacks supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.

49 of 224 linked records have some flagged component

All 220 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 Papain

Across the 224 products on this site that list Papain, 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 2.3x more often with Papain than in the catalogue at large.

Sucralose: +3.6ppSucralose+3.6ppCaramel Coloring: -0.8ppCaramel Coloring-0.8ppCarrageenan: +0ppCarrageenan+0ppMonk fruit extract: +3.1ppMonk fruit extract+3.1ppYellow 6: +0.2ppYellow 6+0.2pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Papain 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
3.6pp
Caramel Coloring
-0.8pp
Carrageenan
0pp
Monk fruit extract
3.1pp
Yellow 6
0.2pp
Additive Shared products Share of Papain products Share of all products
Sucralose 14 6.3% 2.7%
Caramel Coloring 11 4.9% 5.7%
Carrageenan 10 4.5% 4.5%
Monk fruit extract 8 3.6% 0.5%
Yellow 6 8 3.6% 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

Other

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 Papain

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 406080100120 00.511.522.5 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Papain
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.

Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Cupric Sulfate”)

Top-decile company for Papain: 224 listings averaging 95.5/100. Nearest count peers include “Cupric Sulfate”, “Jasmine Rice”, “Pistachio”.

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.

What to do with this Papain record

Start from Papain's 224 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.

  • Open the product sample for Papain and read how the term sits on real packages. Open product sample
  • 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. See source joins

This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.

Papain — common follow-ups

Does Papain carry its own safety label in this catalog?

This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. Papain itself carries a CSPI "Safe" rating 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 Papain?

Papain ranks in the top decile by product count (#1,809 of 247,206), appearing in 224 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

What does Papain do in food?

Papain is recorded as a other in source technical-effect fields.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Papain). 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.