Mayonnaise

Completeness scorecard

Deterministic gap audit — no score is composite, no cell is LLM-judged. Each chip is re-derivable by re-running tools/evidence/build-ingredient-scorecard.mjs. review: residuals and missing data are worked autonomously via data/evidence/ingredient-scorecard-review-flags.csv and wiki/completeness-gaps.md.

This ingredient stub was created during the FDA FY2018-FY2020 Total Diet Study element-results ingest so future source ingests have a stable destination for this food matrix. FDA reports this item as TDS Food 166, “Mayonnaise.” fda2022-tds-elements-fy2018-fy2020

Why this commodity accumulates heavy metals

Mayonnaise is an oil-in-water emulsion consisting primarily of refined vegetable oil (typically soybean or canola, 70 to 80 percent by weight), egg yolk as emulsifier, vinegar or lemon juice, salt, and seasonings. The combination of its dominant ingredient, refined vegetable oil, with low-metal secondary ingredients produces a finished product with negligible heavy metal concentrations across all analytes of concern. Refined vegetable oil carries minimal metals for the same reasons described for margarine: the degumming, bleaching, and deodorization steps of refining remove metal-bearing phospholipid and particulate fractions from the crude oil. Egg yolk, which constitutes approximately 5 to 8 percent of mayonnaise by weight, contains trace metals at low concentrations; dietary Pb in eggs is generally at or below reporting limits in surveillance surveys. Vinegar (acetic acid solution) contributes negligible metals. The FDA FY2018-FY2020 TDS data for mayonnaise found all seven measured analytes (Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb, U, tAs, tHg) below the reporting limit across all three samples fda2022-tds-elements-fy2018-fy2020, which is consistent with the mechanistic expectation and places mayonnaise among the lowest-metal food matrices in the wiki.

Heavy metal contamination profile

Per-analyte snapshot derived from the machine-readable contamination_profile in the frontmatter above. data gap indicates the literature has been reviewed for this commodity-analyte combination and no usable occurrence data was found (a finding, not a placeholder). The Key sources column shows the top 2-3 contributing sources by year and sample size, with numbered wikilink aliases.

FDA TDS FY2018-FY2020 Evidence

The normalized row-level data for this TDS food is stored in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_element_results_samples.csv, with per-food/per-analyte summaries in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_summary_by_food_analyte.csv. Concentrations are retained as FDA reported them, with the reporting-limit column preserved separately; reported zeroes are not rewritten as <LOD unless a source explicitly says to do so. fda2022-tds-elements-fy2018-fy2020

Routing

This node is linked from the ingredient index and the FDA TDS source routing table.

Contamination Profile State

The machine-readable contamination profile is in_progress for analytes measured in the TDS file and pending for profile metals not measured by this source. Ingredient-level values belong here once cross-source synthesis is reviewed; product-category values belong on the relevant product page.

FDA TDS FY2018-FY2020 Occurrence Values

FDA Total Diet Study FY2018-FY2020 reports prepared/composite-food concentration distributions for this ingredient as TDS food “Mayonnaise” (fda2022-tds-elements-fy2018-fy2020). Values are in ppb-equivalent on the basis FDA reported. The full sample-level data are stored in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_element_results_samples.csv; per-analyte distributions in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_summary_by_food_analyte.csv. These distributions count as one source under persistent-wiki-ingest-rule synthesis discipline; numerical values stay in body scratch until a second independent source is integrated.

Ranges by source, region, and variety

The FDA FY2018-FY2020 Total Diet Study measured mayonnaise (TDS Food 166) with n=3 composites and found all seven measured analytes (Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb, U, tAs, tHg) below the reporting limit at minimum and maximum 1. This uniformly non-detectable result is expected given the composition of the product and reflects the US retail market. The small TDS sample count is adequate for this commodity given the mechanistic basis for expecting very low metal content. Different formulations of mayonnaise (reduced-fat varieties with higher water content and modified starch, vegan mayonnaise with aquafaba instead of egg yolk, aioli with garlic) do not change the fundamental metal profile: the oil refining process is the dominant determinant, and none of the substituted ingredients in these variants introduce meaningful metal pathways.

Processing effects

The emulsification process (high-shear mixing of oil with egg yolk and vinegar) does not affect metal concentration. Pasteurization of commercial mayonnaise does not alter metal content. Storage stability (achieved through the vinegar’s low pH, combined with refrigeration) does not affect metal concentration over the normal product shelf life. The vinegar acidification that provides microbiological stability is not sufficient pH to drive dissolution of metals from stainless steel processing equipment at the concentrations relevant to food safety.

Ingredient-derivative risk

Mayonnaise is a finished condiment. Its role as an ingredient in composite products (potato salad, coleslaw, sandwich spreads, dips) dilutes any residual metal load proportionally. No concentrate or derivative of mayonnaise is a mainstream commercial ingredient.

Mitigation options

Sourcing levers

Standard food-grade refined vegetable oils and food-grade egg products already satisfy the conditions for negligible metal content. No special sourcing intervention is warranted.

Agronomic levers

Not applicable; the refined oil refining process and the low-metal nature of egg products remove or preclude agricultural-origin metal variability.

Processing levers

No quantified data on this lever in the current corpus; section will be expanded when relevant evidence is ingested.

Formulation levers

No quantified data on this lever in the current corpus; section will be expanded when relevant evidence is ingested.

Testing and QC levers

Routine lot-level metal testing of commercial mayonnaise is unlikely to yield actionable findings given the uniformly BDL results in the TDS. Metal monitoring resources are more efficiently deployed on higher-risk ingredients in the formulation portfolio.

Packaging and storage levers

Mayonnaise is packaged in glass jars or plastic bottles; the Sn migration pathway is not applicable. Refrigerated storage maintains product quality without affecting metal concentration.

Regulatory limits that apply

EU Regulation 2023/915 sets a maximum level for Pb in fats and oils of 0.10 mg/kg eu2023-contaminants-maximum-levels; mayonnaise, as an emulsified fat product, falls under this or the general condiment framework. No specific EU maximum for Cd in mayonnaise is set. The United States does not set statutory maxima for Pb or Cd in mayonnaise. Codex Alimentarius provisions for contaminants in edible fats and oils and condiments apply codex-cadmium-mls.

Sources

Auto-generated from source-page frontmatter. The “Used on this page for” column is populated by the orchestrator’s POPULATE-SOURCE-LEGEND action; pending entries appear as *[awaiting synthesis]*.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.