Searchable Database of Packaged Foods and Beverages

The vast majority of food and beverages consumed by Americans today are sold in packages. Beyond highly processed items, even foods such as beans, grains like flour and oats, and washed salad greens are canned, bagged, or boxed. The FDA’s Nutrition Facts Label requirement mandates that all of these packages display the ingredients and major nutrient contributions of all packaged foods and beverages. Thus, there is a vast array of publicly available but widely dispersed data on what Americans are eating. In this project, we aim create a structured database that consolidates and standardizes such information. From there, we will be able to study the potential health impacts of the ingredients in the food supply more rigorously than has been previously possible, as well as analyze the prevalence of potentially harmful ingredients in the U.S. food supply and compare that prevalence against that of other countries.

Preliminary Findings

In this report, we used a prototype of our searchable database of the ingredients of packaged foods & beverages to estimate the number and proportion of foods sold in the U.S. containing the 6 petroleum-based color additives that are being phased out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and FDA. 

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REPORT