Saccharin
PlainFoodSafe flags Saccharin as a controversial additive. CSPI Chemical Cuisine rates it “Avoid.” It appears in 120 indexed US food products.
Source-backed answer
Saccharin appears in 120 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Avoid.” 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.
- 120
- catalogued products
- #2,769
- usage rank of 247,206
- 46
- named brands represented
- 61%
- 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.
Saccharin sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#2,769 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #2,769
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 16 others that also appear in exactly 120 products, listed in more products than 98.9% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 61%
- Mean relative depth 61% across 120 parsed labels, slot 9.0 on average. Saccharin 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 common is Saccharin vs other flagged additives?
Number of indexed products containing each of the most common flagged additives - Saccharin highlighted.
What this page can and cannot answer
Audit the co-occurring flags first
100% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Saccharin as the trigger. Open records such as Baguette mit Pastrami groß; Barley water drink; Borscht and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 76.1/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 61% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
100% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 120 of 120 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 Saccharin
Across the 120 products on this site that list Saccharin, 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. Aspartame shows up about 8.3x more often with Saccharin than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Saccharin products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aspartame | 9 | 7.5% | 0.9% |
| Titanium Dioxide | 8 | 6.7% | 2.1% |
| Blue 1 | 7 | 5.8% | 4.2% |
| Sucralose | 6 | 5% | 2.7% |
| Yellow 5 | 6 | 5% | 4.8% |
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
NON-NUTRITIVE SWEETENER
Safety Concerns
Controversial additive
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 Saccharin
Products Containing Saccharin
16 busy labels from the 120 indexed products that list Saccharin:
Saccharin vs other top-decile catalog footprints
Saccharin sits among other busy catalog rows (120 products, mean score 76.1/100). Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Arrowroot Flour; Chocolatey Coating; Cooking Wine. Count peers and score peers are listed separately on purpose.
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 Saccharin evidence
120 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Saccharin are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Open the product sample for Saccharin and read how the term sits on real packages. Open product sample
- Place Saccharin next to “Chocolatey Coating” (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. Read the methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Saccharin — common follow-ups
How should I read safety signals when Saccharin sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
100% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Saccharin is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Saccharin scores 1/5 on this site's screening scale and CSPI lists it as "Avoid" 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 Saccharin? ▼
Saccharin ranks in the top decile by product count (#2,769 of 247,206), appearing in 120 indexed products led by Sweeteners. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What function does Saccharin serve when it appears beside other flagged additives? ▼
Saccharin is recorded as a non-nutritive sweetener 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 (Saccharin). 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.