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Ingredients
An ingredient list is the most honest part of a package. It is regulated, it is complete, and it is ordered — but only if you know how to read it.
Three rules make an ingredient list readable. First, order: EU law requires ingredients to be listed “in descending order of weight, as recorded at the time of their use in the manufacture of the food”. The first name is the largest component — and “at the time of use” is why water can head the list of a sauce that is not mostly water once cooked.
Second, additives. An additive must appear as its function followed by either its name or its E number — “preservative: E202”, “flavour enhancer: monosodium glutamate”. An E number is a European identifier meaning the substance has been assessed and permitted. It is not a grade, and a low number is not safer than a high one.
Third, category names. Some ingredients may be declared by a category rather than individually — “vegetable oil”, “flavouring” — which is why two products with identical-looking lists are not always identical.
These pages take one ingredient at a time: what it is, why it is in the product, the names and codes it hides behind, and what the published evaluations actually concluded. We do not rank ingredients as good or bad — that depends on the person eating them.