Titanium Dioxide
PlainFoodSafe flags Titanium Dioxide as a controversial additive. CSPI Chemical Cuisine rates it “Avoid.” It appears in 8,542 indexed US food products.
Source-backed answer
Titanium Dioxide appears in 8,542 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.
- 8,542
- catalogued products
- #140
- usage rank of 247,206
- 1,381
- named brands represented
- 68%
- 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.
High-volume listing for Titanium Dioxide - usage rank #140
- Usage rank
- #140
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.9% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 68%
- Averaged label depth puts Titanium Dioxide in the lower half of the list (68% of list length, mean slot 18.7). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.
Ranks use Open Food Facts ingredient rows on this site’s refresh cycle. 247,206 ingredients with ≥1 product appearance enter the ranking. Prevalence and list depth are catalog facts, not toxicology.
How common is Titanium Dioxide vs other flagged additives?
Number of indexed products containing each of the most common flagged additives - Titanium Dioxide highlighted.
How to use this page
Audit the co-occurring flags first
99.9% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Titanium Dioxide as the trigger. Open records such as 0016500579793; 1 donut; 1 Wow!, Lollipop Bouquet and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 44.2/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 68% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
99.9% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 8535 of 8535 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 Titanium Dioxide
Across the 8,542 products on this site that list Titanium Dioxide, 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. Red 40 shows up about 7.9x more often with Titanium Dioxide than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Titanium Dioxide products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red 40 | 3,668 | 42.9% | 5.4% |
| Yellow 5 | 3,522 | 41.2% | 4.8% |
| Blue 1 | 3,271 | 38.3% | 4.2% |
| Yellow 6 | 2,420 | 28.3% | 3.4% |
| Red 3 | 1,501 | 17.6% | 1.1% |
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
ANTICAKING AGENT OR FREE-FLOW AGENT, COLOR OR COLORING ADJUNCT, DRYING AGENT, HUMECTANT, PROCESSING AID, SURFACE-FINISHING AGENT, TRACER
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 Titanium Dioxide
Products Containing Titanium Dioxide
16 busy labels from the 8,542 indexed products that list Titanium Dioxide:
High-volume peers for Titanium Dioxide beside “For Color”
Top-decile company for Titanium Dioxide: 8,542 listings averaging 44.2/100. Nearest count peers include “For Color”, “Carbonated Water”, “Beef”.
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.
Next steps from the Titanium Dioxide page
Use the 8,542-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Check the listed products containing Titanium Dioxide before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Browse linked labels
- Place Titanium Dioxide next to “Carbonated Water” (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
How should I read safety signals when Titanium Dioxide sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
99.9% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Titanium Dioxide is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Titanium Dioxide 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 Titanium Dioxide? ▼
Titanium Dioxide ranks in the top decile by product count (#140 of 247,206), appearing in 8,542 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What function does Titanium Dioxide serve when it appears beside other flagged additives? ▼
Titanium Dioxide is recorded as a anticaking agent or free-flow agent, color or coloring adjunct, drying agent, humectant, processing aid, surface-finishing agent, tracer 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 (Titanium Dioxide). 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.