Making Food Labels Make Sense
Every Ingredient, Every Purpose, Clearly Explained
At Honest About Ingredients™, we believe knowing what’s in your food — and why it’s there — shouldn’t be complicated. Yet choosing what to buy can feel overwhelming when ingredient lists read like a chemistry textbook. We get it. You want clear answers, not confusion.
Food labels can be packed with unfamiliar names that raise questions: What does this ingredient do? Does it make my food safer, fresher, or more nutritious? The truth is, many of these ingredients have real benefits — and sometimes, the scariest-sounding ones are simply vitamins or natural compounds with scientific names. Calciferol? That’s just vitamin D. Folacin? A different name for folic acid, another essential vitamin.
At the same time, we know not every ingredient adds nutritional value. Some are included to keep texture or create just the right consistency. Others make it safe or shelf-stable. Then, there are also ingredients that are mainly aesthetic, like color, they make your food look better. That’s why we’re passionate about cutting through the noise — ditching the buzzwords, and giving you facts that matter.
Transparency is about trust. It means showing you exactly what goes into your food products, what each ingredient does, and why it belongs there. Or why it doesn’t. No gimmicks. No misleading claims. Just open, honest information to help you make confident, informed choices.
Because when you know more, you can choose better — for yourself, your nutrition, and your health. And that’s what real transparency looks like.
The Honest About App
Honest About Ingredients™ is a revolutionary app that puts you in control of your nutrition! Look up thousands of food ingredients in real-time and finally get clear, easy-to-understand answers about what’s actually in your food and why. Stop guessing! Stop deciphering chemistry jargon!
You get straightforward facts so you can make confident, informed choices about food ingredients:
- Scan & Know: Instantly scan any text to identify ingredients, what they are, and what they do.
- The Full Picture: Learn if an ingredient supports safety, nutrition, texture or is added purely for taste or color.
- No Jargon: Get plain-language explanations you can trust.
- Go Deep (If You Want To): Explore the scientific details, government approvals, and FDA standards behind every ingredient.
Take the guesswork out of your grocery run. Download the Honest About app today!
Who We Are
Honest About Ingredients™ is a mission-driven project of the Transparency Initiative, an independent collective of scientists, technologists, and consumer packaged goods experts. We are committed to being a trustworthy source of impartial, evidence-based information. We don’t take funding from any brands, corporations, institutes, or any other group that would create a conflict of interest.
The Transparency Initiative’s mission is dedicated to empowering consumers and creating a more transparent food industry by making unbiased, scientific information about ingredients clear and accessible to all. We believe that consumers can make informed choices about their nutrition if they are given the right information.