Red Onions

Red Onions appears in 335 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

Red Onions appears in 335 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.

335
catalogued products
#1,369
usage rank of 247,206
119
named brands represented
56%
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.

What this page can and cannot answer

Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood

This is a mixed product neighborhood: 74 of 335 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare Aegean Greek Pasta; Ahold, simply enjoy, roasted red onion & gruyere gourmet dip; Alaskan Salmon Cake to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Red Onions itself. The ingredient most often sits in the lower half of the list, and Meals supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.

74 of 335 linked records have some flagged component

All 311 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.

High-volume listing for Red Onions - usage rank #1,369

Usage rank
#1,369
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 3 others that also appear in exactly 335 products, listed in more products than 99.4% of them.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
56%
Mean relative depth 56% across 335 parsed labels, slot 19.9 on average. Red Onions tends to sit in the lower half of the 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.

What else is usually in the same product as Red Onions

Across the 335 products on this site that list Red Onions, 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 2.1x more often with Red Onions than in the catalogue at large.

Caramel Coloring: +6.5ppCaramel Coloring+6.5ppSodium Nitrite: +6.6ppSodium Nitrite+6.6ppBHA: +6.5ppBHA+6.5ppBHT: +5.5ppBHT+5.5ppCarrageenan: -0.9ppCarrageenan-0.9pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Red Onions products only. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists.
Chart values as text

Unit: percentage points above/below baseline. Data current as of September 2026.

Caramel Coloring
6.5pp
Sodium Nitrite
6.6pp
BHA
6.5pp
BHT
5.5pp
Carrageenan
-0.9pp
Additive Shared products Share of Red Onions products Share of all products
Caramel Coloring 41 12.2% 5.7%
Sodium Nitrite 30 9% 2.4%
BHA 24 7.2% 0.7%
BHT 22 6.6% 1.1%
Carrageenan 12 3.6% 4.5%

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.

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 Red Onions

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 80859095100105 00.511.522.5 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Red Onions
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 “Lemon Puree”)

High-volume peers for Red Onions: 335 products, mean screening score 95.2/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Lemon Puree · Magnesium · Shiitake Mushrooms. 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

Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.

What to do with this Red Onions record

Start from Red Onions's 335 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.

  • Check the listed products containing Red Onions before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. See listed products
  • Place Red Onions next to “Magnesium” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Browse ingredient records
  • Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. Read the methodology

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

Questions readers ask about Red Onions

Does Red Onions carry its own safety label in this catalog?

This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. This snapshot does not attach a standalone FDA/CSPI verdict to Red Onions. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.

Which product shelves show up most often with Red Onions?

Red Onions ranks in the top decile by product count (#1,369 of 247,206), appearing in 335 indexed products led by Meals. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

Why is Red Onions so common on ingredient lists?

The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Red Onions appears in 335 products (#1,369 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Red Onions). 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.