Processed Foods Ingredients

What is the most common processed food ingredient in the diets of Americans?   

Answer:

There are many manufactured ingredients found in processed food, but these three are at or near the top of the list in terms of quantity:

  • Sugar
  • High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
  • Flour

Here are the numbers:

The average American consumes almost 152 pounds of sugar in one year. [1]

In 2019, the average American consumed about 37 pounds of HFCS. [2]

In 2021, the average US resident consumed about 130 pounds of flour. [3]

The winner is sugar. If you want to know who the loser is, here’s something to think about: Americans on average consume a total of 320 pounds of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and flour every year, which is pretty close to a pound a day. And excess amounts of these particular ingredients are stored in the body as fat.

References

  1. https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/nhp/documents/sugar.pdf
  2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/328893/per-capita-consumption-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup-in-the-us/ 
  3. https://www.ibisworld.com/us/bed/per-capita-wheat-flour-consumption/4579/

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