Polydextrose
Polydextrose carries a source-backed screening score of 4/5 and appears in 1,396 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Cut Back.”
Source-backed answer
Polydextrose appears in 1,396 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Cut Back.” Its FDA SAFFA status is “Approved.” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.
- 1,396
- catalogued products
- #536
- usage rank of 247,206
- 293
- named brands represented
- 34%
- 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.
Polydextrose: top-decile catalog footprint (#536 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #536
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 1 other that also appear in exactly 1,396 products, listed in more products than 99.8% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 34%
- Averaged label depth puts Polydextrose in the upper half of the list (34% of list length, mean slot 10.6). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.
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
Audit the co-occurring flags first
71.4% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Polydextrose as the trigger. Open records such as 100% Pure Whey With Grass Fed Whey Isolates Vanilla Cream Slice Flavour; 100% Whole Wheat; 100% whole wheat pre-sliced slim buns and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 80.3/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 34% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
71.4% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 1390 of 1391 NOVA-tagged records. That describes the surrounding products, not the substance. For a useful comparison, hold category and processing level constant, then inspect which named component changes alongside the caution flag; otherwise the product mix will confound the ingredient question.
Next check: open the lowest-scoring linked formulation and locate the exact caution-marked component.
What else is usually in the same product as Polydextrose
Across the 1,396 products on this site that list Polydextrose, 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 18x more often with Polydextrose than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Polydextrose products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sucralose | 679 | 48.6% | 2.7% |
| Carrageenan | 318 | 22.8% | 4.5% |
| Acesulfame Potassium | 213 | 15.3% | 1.8% |
| Caramel Coloring | 167 | 12% | 5.7% |
| Red 40 | 134 | 9.6% | 5.4% |
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
FORMULATION AID, HUMECTANT, NUTRIENT SUPPLEMENT, STABILIZER OR THICKENER, 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 Polydextrose
Products Containing Polydextrose
High-volume slice (16 of 1,396) for products naming Polydextrose:
Polydextrose vs other top-decile catalog footprints
High-volume peers for Polydextrose: 1,396 products, mean screening score 80.3/100. Nearest count peers include “Thiamine”, “Soy Protein”, “Isolated soy protein”. 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
Nearest other ingredients by mean product screening score (floored at ≥50 scored products), distinct from the count row.
Next steps from the Polydextrose page
Use the 1,396-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Open the product sample for Polydextrose and read how the term sits on real packages. See listed products
- 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.
Questions readers ask about Polydextrose
How should I read safety signals when Polydextrose sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
71.4% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Polydextrose is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Polydextrose scores 4/5 on this site's screening scale and CSPI lists it as "Cut Back" with FDA SAFFA status "Approved". None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Polydextrose? ▼
Polydextrose ranks in the top decile by product count (#536 of 247,206), appearing in 1,396 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What function does Polydextrose serve when it appears beside other flagged additives? ▼
Polydextrose is recorded as a formulation aid, humectant, nutrient supplement, stabilizer or thickener, texturizer in source technical-effect fields. In high co-flag products, that function coexists with other caution-marked components — inspect the full list rather than isolating this role.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Polydextrose). 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.