Xanthan Gum

Xanthan Gum carries a source-backed screening score of 3/5 and appears in 36,931 indexed US food products.

Source-backed answer

Xanthan Gum appears in 36,931 catalogued products. CSPI has no rating attached in this snapshot. 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.

36,931
catalogued products
#21
usage rank of 247,206
5,249
named brands represented
73%
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.

Xanthan Gum sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#21 / 247,206)

Usage rank
#21
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
73%
Mean relative depth 73% across 36,947 parsed labels, slot 21.0 on average. Xanthan Gum 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.

Reading this ingredient record

Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood

This is a mixed product neighborhood: 14059 of 36931 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 1 Cal Sunflower Oil Cooking Spray; 1 To 1 Baking Flour; 1 to 1 Baking Flour to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Xanthan Gum itself. The ingredient most often sits in the lower half of the list, and Condiments supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.

14059 of 36,931 linked records have some flagged component

All 36926 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.

What else is usually in the same product as Xanthan Gum

Across the 36,931 products on this site that list Xanthan Gum, 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. Caramel Coloring shows up about 2.4x more often with Xanthan Gum than in the catalogue at large.

Caramel Coloring: +7.7ppCaramel Coloring+7.7ppCarrageenan: +7.2ppCarrageenan+7.2ppPolysorbate 60: +6.6ppPolysorbate 60+6.6ppRed 40: +1.7ppRed 40+1.7ppYellow 5: +2.1ppYellow 5+2.1pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Xanthan Gum products only. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists.
Chart values as text

Unit: percentage points above/below baseline. Data current as of September 2026.

Caramel Coloring
7.7pp
Carrageenan
7.2pp
Polysorbate 60
6.6pp
Red 40
1.7pp
Yellow 5
2.1pp
Additive Shared products Share of Xanthan Gum products Share of all products
Caramel Coloring 4,934 13.4% 5.7%
Carrageenan 4,321 11.7% 4.5%
Polysorbate 60 2,943 8% 1.4%
Red 40 2,633 7.1% 5.4%
Yellow 5 2,562 6.9% 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

ANTICAKING AGENT OR FREE-FLOW AGENT, COLOR OR COLORING ADJUNCT, DRYING AGENT, EMULSIFIER OR EMULSIFIER SALT, FORMULATION AID, PROCESSING AID, SOLVENT OR VEHICLE, STABILIZER OR THICKENER, SURFACE-FINISHING AGENT, TEXTURIZER

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 Xanthan Gum

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 60708090100110 00.511.522.5 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Xanthan Gum
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 “Reduced Iron”)

Top-decile company for Xanthan Gum: 36,931 listings averaging 89.8/100. Nearest count peers include “Reduced Iron”, “Milk”, “Enzymes”.

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.

Using the Xanthan Gum evidence

Start from Xanthan Gum's 36,931 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.

  • Review the sampled product records that list Xanthan Gum to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Browse linked labels
  • Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Compare a peer
  • See the join rules behind screening scores before reading them as dietary advice. 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 Xanthan Gum

Does Xanthan Gum carry its own safety label in this catalog?

This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. Xanthan Gum itself carries and FDA SAFFA status "Approved" where the source record supplies them. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.

Which product shelves show up most often with Xanthan Gum?

Xanthan Gum ranks in the top decile by product count (#21 of 247,206), appearing in 36,931 indexed products led by Condiments. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

What does Xanthan Gum do in food?

Xanthan Gum is recorded as a anticaking agent or free-flow agent, color or coloring adjunct, drying agent, emulsifier or emulsifier salt, formulation aid, processing aid, solvent or vehicle, stabilizer or thickener, surface-finishing agent, texturizer in source technical-effect fields.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Xanthan Gum). 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.