How the laws are read and the products counted

Every tool and page reads three data files: one for the 14 substances tracked and their federal status, one for the 19 state rules and bills, and one for the product counts. Each rule carries the official address it was read at and the date (November 1, 2026). No status or date is typed into a page. Automated tests check the status logic on cases worked out by hand.

1. What counts as a source

For federal decisions, the Federal Register and the electronic Code of Federal Regulations; FDA web pages for announcements that have no legal force, which are always described as such. For state laws, the enrolled bill, the chaptered law or the code on the legislature's own site. California's legislature site blocks automated reading, so its bills were read from the official data download the legislature publishes for that purpose. For court orders, the filed document where we could open it. News stories, law firm notes and advocacy lists help us find texts but never supply a fact, with one marked exception: the terms of the Texas injunction, which we could not open, are given as reported by counsel for the industry.

2. The status of a rule on a date

For a chosen date, a rule is "in effect" when its start date has passed and no court order bars it, "enacted, not yet in effect" before its start date, "blocked" when a court has barred all enforcement, and "limited" when a court has barred enforcement against some companies only. A bill passed by a legislature but not signed is shown as such and never as law. A federal revocation counts from its effective date, or from its compliance date when the order sets one. The headline answer takes the most binding rule that applies: a federal ban, then a state ban on all food, then a school rule, then a label rule.

3. School years

Many school laws start "with the 2026-2027 school year" and give no calendar date. To sort them, the site places them on July 1 of the first year, but always prints the law's own words. A school rule is never shown as a rule on food sold in stores.

4. Not confirmed

When an official site could not be read, the state is shown as "not confirmed", with no list or date, and left out of every count. On November 1, 2026, that was the case for 4 entries: Tennessee, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Michigan. Virginia's governor approval dates were not found on the official site and are left blank; the chapter numbers confirm the laws.

5. Product data

The product figures come from the USDA FoodData Central Branded Foods download, release of October 29, 2026, a public-domain data set. The download was read directly from USDA without storing it: only the product records and their descriptions. Records with a market country other than the United States and records marked discontinued were dropped; when a barcode appeared more than once, the most recent record was kept, leaving 440,229 products. Each ingredient list was read by the same matcher as the ingredient checker. USDA categories were grouped into 17 food categories; other products count in the totals only. The list shown in the product search keeps the 1,200 most recent labels per category with a tracked substance. The label dates are spread over several years, which is why every page says that recipes may have changed:

6. State texts read

7. Federal and other pages read

8. What the site does not do

• It does not judge whether a dye, additive or food is safe: positions published by agencies are quoted and attributed.
• It gives no legal advice to businesses; every rule links to its text.
• It keeps nothing you type: the tools run in your browser.

Method version of November 1, 2026. A rule that looks wrong: contact.