200 Food Additives and their Legal Status in Canada, the EU, and the US
Something I’ve been reading up on lately is the number of Food Additives in various food products. I was curious in the differences in regulations between Canada (where I live), the EU and the USA. I used ChatGPT to compile some data (which I hope is accurate but proceed with caution) and visualized it in an interactive Looker Studio report.
I was inteI was surprised to read the nutritional label of a yogurt at the grocery store and saw that it contained Carrageenan, a type of seaweed. Realizing quickly that seaweed shouldn’t belong in yogurt it made me pay more attention to what’s in the stuff I buy and eat.
Data Visualization showing Food Additives in Canada, the EU and the US
Below is the data visualization I made in Looker Studio. You might want to view on desktop for best results.
Using the Looker Studio Dashboard
Below is the main heading of the dashboard showing the total number of food additives and pie charts for each country / region.

Below is a video showing how you can filter by the legal status of a substance in the US, Canada and the EU.
The table below the pie charts (the pies didn’t contain any seaweed, I checked) shows the name of the substance, a link to more information about it, a category of additive, a description and reason for why it’s banned, and the status in the US, Canada and the EU.

Below is a video showing how you can interact with the table.
My Other Blog Posts
I hope you enjoyed this post about food additives! You might enjoy some of my other blog posts.