Sodium Nitrate
PlainFoodSafe flags Sodium Nitrate as a preservative concern. CSPI Chemical Cuisine rates it “Avoid.” It appears in 791 indexed US food products.
Source-backed answer
Sodium Nitrate appears in 791 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Avoid.” Its FDA SAFFA status is “Prior Sanctioned.” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.
- 791
- catalogued products
- #765
- usage rank of 247,206
- 292
- named brands represented
- 78%
- 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.
Sodium Nitrate: top-decile catalog footprint (#765 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #765
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.7% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 78%
- Mean relative depth 78% across 791 parsed labels, slot 16.6 on average. Sodium Nitrate tends to sit near the end of the captured 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 Sodium Nitrate vs other flagged additives?
Number of indexed products containing each of the most common flagged additives - Sodium Nitrate highlighted.
Reading this ingredient record
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 Sodium Nitrate as the trigger. Open records such as 6 Ham & Cheese Patties; 6 Ham Patties; 9 Mini Bagel Dogs and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 74.0/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 78% 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 672 of 778 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 Sodium Nitrate
Across the 791 products on this site that list Sodium Nitrate, 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. Sodium Nitrite shows up about 16.3x more often with Sodium Nitrate than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Sodium Nitrate products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium Nitrite | 310 | 39.2% | 2.4% |
| BHA | 89 | 11.3% | 0.7% |
| BHT | 81 | 10.2% | 1.1% |
| Caramel Coloring | 47 | 5.9% | 5.7% |
| Carrageenan | 31 | 3.9% | 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.
Function
ANTIMICROBIAL AGENT, COLOR OR COLORING ADJUNCT, FLAVOR ENHANCER, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, PROPELLANT
Safety Concerns
Preservative concern
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 Sodium Nitrate
Products Containing Sodium Nitrate
A sample of 16 high-volume listings among the 791 indexed products containing Sodium Nitrate:
High-volume peers for Sodium Nitrate beside “Pretzels”
Top-decile company for Sodium Nitrate: 791 listings averaging 74/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Pretzels · Vitamin A Acetate · Organic Whole Rolled Oats.
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.
Next steps from the Sodium Nitrate page
Start from Sodium Nitrate's 791 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.
- Check the listed products containing Sodium Nitrate before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. See listed products
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. 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.
Questions readers ask about Sodium Nitrate
How should I read safety signals when Sodium Nitrate 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 Sodium Nitrate is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Sodium Nitrate scores 1/5 on this site's screening scale and CSPI lists it as "Avoid" with FDA SAFFA status "Prior Sanctioned". None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Sodium Nitrate? ▼
Sodium Nitrate ranks in the top decile by product count (#765 of 247,206), appearing in 791 indexed products led by Meats and their products. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What function does Sodium Nitrate serve when it appears beside other flagged additives? ▼
Sodium Nitrate is recorded as a antimicrobial agent, color or coloring adjunct, flavor enhancer, flavoring agent or adjuvant, propellant 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 (Sodium Nitrate). 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.