Top 10 Flagged Food Additives by Product Presence in Open Food Facts
PlainFoodSafe ranks food additives flagged by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) or under FDA regulatory action by how many products in the Open Food Facts database contain them. Updated automatically as new data is processed.
Research period:
Research question
Among additives that regulatory bodies and food-policy NGOs have flagged for elevated concern, which appear in the largest number of products in the public-domain Open Food Facts product catalog?
Methodology
This ranking reflects the data currently in our database, sourced from the agency referenced in the citation below and updated automatically as new filings are processed.
Coverage and exclusions: the source agency occasionally suppresses values for confidentiality, small sample size, or quality control, and suppressed rows are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero. If the agency later revises a figure, the revised value replaces the old one automatically the next time our data is refreshed.
Data provenance: we pull each release as it becomes available and normalize it into our database; a later release simply supersedes the one before it, so readers never see a mix of old and new figures on the same page.
Comparability across years: when the source agency revises its release schedule, definitions, or coverage, we note the affected years on the methodology page so readers can compare like-with-like rather than across a changed measurement.
Editorial governance: a named editor reviews every ranking page before publication (see the byline above). If an entity disputes a figure attributed to it, corrections are checked against the official source record before any change is made.
Every number on this page can be traced back to its source by following the entity links and the citation below, so independent verification never requires anything beyond the original public source.
See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.
Top 10 Flagged Food Additives by Product Presence in Open Food Facts
Live data: reflects the current dataset
The ranked top
Every row below reflects the current 10-record dataset. Reload the page after new data is processed to see the latest values.
| # | Additive | Severity tier | Products containing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Caramel Coloring | 1 | 22,612 |
| 2 | Red 40 | 3 | 21,595 |
| 3 | Yellow 5 | 3 | 18,987 |
| 4 | Carrageenan | 1 | 17,853 |
| 5 | Blue 1 | 3 | 16,643 |
| 6 | Yellow 6 | 3 | 13,560 |
| 7 | Sucralose | 2 | 10,490 |
| 8 | Sodium Nitrite | 2 | 9,577 |
| 9 | Titanium Dioxide | 2 | 8,386 |
| 10 | Acesulfame Potassium | 2 | 6,990 |
Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA Food Additive Status List and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA Food Additive Status List and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Caramel Coloring, with a value of 22,612 on the Products containing column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the source agency publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (22,612) and the 10th-ranked record (6,990) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Food and Drug Administration, specifically the FDA Food Additive Status List and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings. PlainFoodSafe ingests the source vintage published by the agency and keeps this page current, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published dataset is reflected here within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the steps applied to prepare the data.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
The 'flagged' designation indicates that the Center for Science in the Public Interest's Chemical Cuisine rating, the FDA's enforcement record, or enacted state legislation has identified the additive as warranting elevated scrutiny, it is not a determination that the additive is unsafe at typical dietary exposures for any individual. Product-presence counts reflect the Open Food Facts public catalog, which is contributor-built and skewed toward popular packaged products; absolute counts are most useful for relative comparison across additives rather than as a measure of total US consumer exposure. Severity tiers are an editorial ranking based on the CSPI Chemical Cuisine framework and the FDA regulatory record, not a medical risk assessment. Readers concerned about a specific additive should consult a registered dietitian or their physician, this dataset is informational and aggregation-only, not medical advice.
Secondary cut from the same source
Top 10 flagged additives by editorial severity tier
Sources
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Food Additive Status List - https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/food-additive-status-list
- Center for Science in the Public Interest, Chemical Cuisine ratings - https://www.cspinet.org/eating-healthy/chemical-cuisine
- Open Food Facts, public product ingredient database (CC0) - https://world.openfoodfacts.org/