Secret Ingredients Not Listed on the Food Label (2024)

You may think reading the label on the foods you buy is the best way to avoid certain ingredients, unfortunately that is not true!

In fact there are many foods on the shelf containing “secret” ingredients that are not required by the FDA to be put on the label.

There are Secret Ingredients Not Listed on the Food Label! This information both scared and amazed me.

When first starting the Specific Carbohydrate Diet I have been reading label after label in the store just to find “legal” foods for the restricted diet I am following. I didn’t know until recently that most of the foods I was purchasing that I thought contained only what was listed on the label was actually packed with ingredients not listed.

Here is some information I received from the FDA website, you know the people who we trust to control what is and isn’t put into our foods.

Is it necessary to declare ingredients in “trace”, i.e., incidental amounts? Can sulfites be considered incidental additives?

Answer: FDA does not define “trace amounts”; however, there are some exemptions for declaring ingredients present in “incidental” amounts in a finished food. If an ingredient is present at an incidental level and has no functional or technical effect in the finished product, then it need not be declared on the label. An incidental additive is usually present because it is an ingredient of another ingredient. Note that major food allergens (as discussed under Food Allergen Labeling), regardless of whether they are present in the food in trace amounts, must be declared.

Sulfites added to any food or to any ingredient in any food and that has no technical effect in that food are considered to be incidental only if present at less than 10 ppm. 21 CFR 101.100(a)(3) & (4)

F2. What is a “major food allergen?”

Answer: Under FALCPA, a “major food allergen” is an ingredient that is one of the following eight foods or food groups or an ingredient that contains protein derived from one of them:

milk

egg

fish

Crustacean shellfish

tree nuts

wheat

peanut

soybeans

Although more than 160 foods have been identified to cause food allergies in sensitive individuals, the “major food allergens” account for 90 percent of all food allergies.

Allergens other than the major food allergens are not subject to FALCPA labeling requirements.

That means if you are on a restricted diet and are trying to avoid sugar, gluten, preservatives, additives, or other foods that may cause your body harm, don’t trust the labels!

I don’t understand why in a country where we have so many illnesses directly related to the foods we consume, that every single ingredient is not required to be listed. I don’t care if it is a trace amount, if there is an ingredient that will harm my body, I want to know about it!

Do you read labels before making a purchase? Does it worry you that there are “secret” ingredients in the foods we buy?