Yellow Lake 5
Yellow Lake 5 appears in 43 indexed US food products. No FDA SAFFA status or CSPI rating is attached in this snapshot, so this page reports prevalence rather than a safety verdict.
What the data can answer
Yellow Lake 5 appears in 43 catalogued products, but this snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to it. This page therefore cannot answer whether the ingredient is safe from those sources. It can show how often it occurs, where it tends to sit on labels, and which kinds of products contain it.
- 43
- catalogued products
- #5,507
- usage rank of 247,206
- 24
- named brands represented
- 71%
- 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.
Reading this ingredient record
Audit the co-occurring flags first
72.1% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Yellow Lake 5 as the trigger. Open records such as Assorted Butter Mints, Assorted; Assorted Butter Mints, Assorted; Au Gratin Potatoes and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 65.1/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 71% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
72.1% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 43 of 43 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.
Yellow Lake 5 sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#5,507 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #5,507
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 95 others that also appear in exactly 43 products.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 71%
- Averaged label depth puts Yellow Lake 5 in the lower half of the list (71% of list length, mean slot 30.3). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.
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.
What else is usually in the same product as Yellow Lake 5
Across the 43 products on this site that list Yellow Lake 5, 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. Yellow 6 shows up about 9.6x more often with Yellow Lake 5 than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Yellow Lake 5 products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow 6 | 14 | 32.6% | 3.4% |
| Yellow 5 | 12 | 27.9% | 4.8% |
| Red 40 | 8 | 18.6% | 5.4% |
| Blue 1 | 8 | 18.6% | 4.2% |
| Polysorbate 60 | 6 | 14% | 1.4% |
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.
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 Yellow Lake 5
Products Containing Yellow Lake 5
A sample of 16 high-volume listings among the 43 indexed products containing Yellow Lake 5:
High-volume peers for Yellow Lake 5
High-volume peers for Yellow Lake 5: 43 products, mean screening score 65.1/100. Axes below stay distinct so count-neighbors do not duplicate score-neighbors.
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 Yellow Lake 5 page
43 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Yellow Lake 5 are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Review the sampled product records that list Yellow Lake 5 to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Browse linked labels
- Compare another ingredient’s source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Open a peer record
- 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 Yellow Lake 5
How should I read safety signals when Yellow Lake 5 sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
72.1% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Yellow Lake 5 is the trigger. None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Yellow Lake 5? ▼
Yellow Lake 5 ranks in the top decile by product count (#5,507 of 247,206), appearing in 43 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Yellow Lake 5 so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Yellow Lake 5 appears in 43 products (#5,507 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Yellow Lake 5). 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.