Sugar
Sugar carries a source-backed screening score of 4/5 and appears in 159,804 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Cut Back.”
Source-backed answer
Sugar appears in 159,804 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Cut Back.” 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.
- 159,804
- catalogued products
- #2
- usage rank of 293,342
- 21,745
- named brands represented
- 28%
- 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.
4/5 from FDA SAFFA + CSPI Chemical Cuisine
Where Sugar sits among catalogued ingredients
- Usage rank
- #2
- of 293,342 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 28%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 161,475 products listing it (mean slot 7.1). Sugar usually falls in the upper half of the list; this position does not measure its amount because source formatting, compound ingredients and labeling exceptions vary.
Derived by this site from the ingredient lists of every catalogued product (Open Food Facts), recomputed on each data refresh. 293,342 ingredients have at least one appearance and are ranked here. Usage and list position describe prevalence, not safety.
How to use this page
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 56136 of 159804 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 0% Fat Greek Nonfat Yogurt; 0% Milkfat Fat Free Small Curd Cottage Cheese; 0% Nonfat Greek Yogurt With Fruit to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Sugar itself. The ingredient most often sits in the upper half of the list, and Snacks supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
All 157342 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.
Function
Sweetener
Safety Profile at a Glance
| Source | Classification | Year |
|---|---|---|
| FDA SAFFA | Not listed | 2024 |
| CSPI Chemical Cuisine | Cut Back | 2024 |
| PlainFoodSafe Score | 4/5 | 2026 |
| Product footprint | 159,804 products | OpenFoodFacts |
FDA SAFFA database, CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings, OpenFoodFacts product index. See methodology.
Products Containing Sugar
A sample of 16 of the 159,804 indexed products containing Sugar, with each product's overall safety score.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Sugar safe to eat? ▼
Sugar has a PlainFoodSafe ingredient-screening score of 4/5. CSPI rates it "Cut Back." These labels are not a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific safety determination.
What products contain Sugar? ▼
Sugar is found in 159,804 products in our database, spanning various food categories and brands.
What does Sugar do in food? ▼
Sugar is used as a sweetener in food products.
Citation notes
Regulatory status from FDA SAFFA; safety ratings from CSPI Chemical Cuisine; product presence from Open Food Facts. See our methodology. Retrieved and formatted by PlainFoodSafe.Every figure on PlainFoodSafe is rendered directly from OpenFoodFacts and FDA data, no number is typed in by an editor. Ingredient figures are computed directly from OpenFoodFacts, FDA SAFFA, and CSPI Chemical Cuisine data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of July 2026.
