Research: Overview of the Most Popular Food Comparisons
In a new series of posts categorized under ¨FoodEssentials Research¨, I will be regularly publishing research data from the FoodEssentials LabelBase Database and FoodChoice Database. I briefly describe each database at the bottom of this post. The aim of these posts is to provide the community with unique insight in to Food label data and the Food Comparison data as well as to highlight and outline the type of data available in the FoodEssentials databases.
Overview of the Most Popular Food Comparisons
The graph below shows the top 10 food comparisons on FoodEssentials.com by users in 2009. A food comparison is defined as a choice of an additive, allergen, or ingredient variable when comparing various food products on FoodEssentials.com. The table below the graph goes in to a little more detail showing the food comparisons for all 38 variables available at this stage.
Not suprinsingly, the most compared variable is Calories at 6.3% of all comparisons, followed by Gluten at 4.6%. The following six comparisons; preservatives, sodium, fiber, sugars, total fat and saturated fat, are all fairly close in popularity and predictably so. Probably the only suprise in the top 10 comparisons is sulphites at number 10 with 3.2% of all comparisons.
Beyond the top 10 there are a few other interesting results. Somewhat suprisingly, high fructose corn syrup and MSG make an appearance in the top 20 at about 2-3%, the popularity of HFCS probably being due to the ingredients’ presence in the media recently.
In general, the top 20 most popular food comparisons are either nutrients or additives, with nutrients occupying 7 out of the top 10 spots. This could probably be attributed to several reasons, such as; the fact that everyone is interested in nutrients, it is the variable that they are most used to comparising foods by, and that the population of allergy sufferers is erlatively small compared to the general population. However, it is expected that this distribution will change over time, with more people delving deaper in to the food labels and comparing allergens and additives more ofte
n as they become accustomed to the tool and data – this was previously witnessed in statistics from our Australian project.
The next post in this series will look in to the Food Categories that people are exlporing.
Most Popular Food Comparison – All FoodEssentials Food Categories 2009 |
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| Position | Food Comparison | Number of Views | Percentage |
| 1 | Calories | 40163 | 6.3% |
| 2 | Gluten | 29244 | 4.6% |
| 3 | Preservatives | 24412 | 3.8% |
| 4 | Sodium | 23448 | 3.7% |
| 5 | Fiber | 23155 | 3.6% |
| 6 | Sugars | 22701 | 3.6% |
| 7 | Total Fat | 22333 | 3.5% |
| 8 | Saturated Fat | 22193 | 3.5% |
| 9 | Fat Calories | 21095 | 3.3% |
| 10 | Sulphites | 20200 | 3.2% |
| 11 | Colors | 19689 | 3.1% |
| 12 | Cholesterol | 18894 | 3.0% |
| 13 | Protein | 18565 | 2.9% |
| 14 | Flavor Enhancer | 18492 | 2.9% |
| 15 | High Fructose Corn Syrup | 18338 | 2.9% |
| 16 | Thickeners | 18147 | 2.8% |
| 17 | Emulsifiers | 17461 | 2.7% |
| 18 | MSG | 17336 | 2.7% |
| 19 | Cereals | 16779 | 2.6% |
| 20 | Dairy | 16663 | 2.6% |
| 21 | Soy | 16260 | 2.5% |
| 22 | Sweeteners | 16250 | 2.5% |
| 23 | Aspartame | 16211 | 2.5% |
| 24 | Sesame Seeds | 15675 | 2.5% |
| 25 | Sodium Benzoate | 15292 | 2.4% |
| 26 | Lactose | 14867 | 2.3% |
| 27 | Tree Nuts | 14745 | 2.3% |
| 28 | Peanuts | 13355 | 2.1% |
| 29 | Artificial Color Blue 1 | 12986 | 2.0% |
| 30 | Disodium Guanylate | 12370 | 1.9% |
| 31 | Calcium Propionate | 12176 | 1.9% |
| 32 | Artificial Color Yellow 5 | 11736 | 1.8% |
| 33 | Artificial Color Yellow 6 | 11532 | 1.8% |
| 34 | Egg | 11127 | 1.7% |
| 35 | Artificial Color Blue 2 | 10982 | 1.7% |
| 36 | Artificial Color Red 40 | 3658 | 0.6% |
| TOTAL | 638530 | ||
Purchase Data Reports:
All the data represented in this report and including data from the LabelBase and Food Choice Databases can be purchased as reports or accessed by license. See data.foodessentials.com or contact us for more information.
email: info@foodessentials.com Tel: +1 
(312) 878-2762
LabelBase Database:
The FoodEssentials LabelBase Database presently has 40,000 food labels including all product details, nutrients, ingredients, manufacturer claims and relevant marketing claims. The Uniqueness of this database lies in the ingredient processing and thadditive, allergen and specific ingredient properties attached to each ingredient . It contains 22,000 differently named ingredients, 3,129 unique ingredients, 836,000 ingredient property links. Full access to this database can be subscribed to at data.foodessentials.com
FoodChoice Database:
The FoodChoice Database houses all the behavior data from FoodEssentials.com and all applications using the FoodEssentials data. It is a powerful, unique database offering insight into consumer dietary preferences and behavior. Access can be granted by application to info@foodessentials.com
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