Stevia

Stevia carries a source-backed screening score of 5/5 and appears in 1,294 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Safe.”

Source-backed answer

Stevia appears in 1,294 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.

1,294
catalogued products
#564
usage rank of 247,206
435
named brands represented
80%
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.

Stevia: top-decile catalog footprint (#564 of 247,206)

Usage rank
#564
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.8% of them.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
80%
Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 1,294 products listing it (mean slot 13.7). Stevia usually falls near the end of the captured list; this position does not measure its amount because source formatting, compound ingredients and labeling exceptions vary.

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.

Reading this ingredient record

Use prevalence before concern

Only 13.4% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: Stevia spans 435 named brands and is led by the Beverages group. Start with 100% Grass Fed Whey Protein Powder; 100% Organic Herbal Tea; 100% Whey Protein when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 97.7/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.

435 named brands carry this ingredient

The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 1177 of 1244 classified products, leaving a meaningful remainder elsewhere. This breadth is why the page reports label depth, category, and product examples separately. Those dimensions help locate comparable products; combining them into a stronger safety claim would hide the variation the catalog actually contains.

Next check: compare label position across two brands before treating prevalence as equivalent exposure.

What else is usually in the same product as Stevia

Across the 1,294 products on this site that list Stevia, 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 3.4x more often with Stevia than in the catalogue at large.

Sucralose: +6.5ppSucralose+6.5ppMonk fruit extract: +2.8ppMonk fruit extract+2.8ppCarrageenan: -2.5ppCarrageenan-2.5ppPolysorbate 80: -0.3ppPolysorbate 80-0.3ppCaramel Coloring: -4.8ppCaramel Coloring-4.8pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Stevia 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
6.5pp
Monk fruit extract
2.8pp
Carrageenan
-2.5pp
Polysorbate 80
-0.3pp
Caramel Coloring
-4.8pp
Additive Shared products Share of Stevia products Share of all products
Sucralose 119 9.2% 2.7%
Monk fruit extract 43 3.3% 0.5%
Carrageenan 26 2% 4.5%
Polysorbate 80 13 1% 1.3%
Caramel Coloring 12 0.9% 5.7%

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

Sweetener

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 Stevia

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 99.9100.0100.0100100.0100.0100.1 00.00.00.1 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Stevia
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 “Distilled Monoglycerides”)

High-volume peers for Stevia: 1,294 products, mean screening score 97.7/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Distilled Monoglycerides · Calcium Silicate · Grain Vinegar. 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 Stevia page

Start from Stevia's 1,294 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.

  • Open the product sample for Stevia and read how the term sits on real packages. Browse linked labels
  • Place Stevia next to “Calcium Silicate” (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. Open methodology

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

Frequently Asked Questions

What do the source ratings say about Stevia?

Stevia has a PlainFoodSafe ingredient-screening score of 5/5. CSPI rates it "Safe." With only 13.4% co-flag overlap in linked products, prevalence and label position often matter as much as the registry labels — and none of them establish product-level safety.

Which product shelves show up most often with Stevia?

Stevia ranks in the top decile by product count (#564 of 247,206), appearing in 1,294 indexed products led by Beverages. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

What does Stevia do in food?

Stevia is recorded as a sweetener in source technical-effect fields.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Stevia). 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.