We Analyzed 20,683 Grocery Products Against the MRT 176 Panel: The 2026 Food Sensitivity Report

Kerry Watson, NTP, RWP
Nutritional Therapy Practitioner & Restorative Wellness Practitioner • Evidence-based food sensitivity guidance

Did you know that 58.2% of grocery products contain cane sugar? Or that 40.9% contain corn derivatives? When you start the LEAP protocol, reading labels becomes a full-time job. You turn over every package and scan the ingredient lists. It is exhausting. We analyzed 20,683 grocery products against the MRT 176 panel to see exactly what is hiding on supermarket shelves. The results are a big deal. They explain why you keep reacting to ‘safe’ foods and why food sensitivities are at an all-time high. All disease starts in the gut. The sheer volume of industrial additives and inflammatory triggers in our food supply is driving that process.

The Numbers

We ran a massive audit using our proprietary Wellbloom product database. We took 20,683 common grocery products and cross-referenced them directly against the MRT 176 panel. We tracked 171 unique triggers across this entire dataset.

We found that 32 different triggers appear in over 1,000 products. Another 55 triggers show up in over 500 products. The food industry relies heavily on a core set of cheap ingredients. These ingredients provoke your immune system. When you eat them day after day, you get in to trouble.

Top 10 Triggers Hiding in Your Grocery Cart

Look at this list. These are the top 10 offenders we found across the entire 20,683 product database. This data shows exactly what you are up against when you walk down the grocery aisle.

Cane sugar is the undisputed leader here. We see it in almost 60 percent of products. Fructose adds another 2,300 appearances (11.1%). Sugars drive inflammation directly. Corn is next at 40.9%. This includes high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, and maltodextrin. Grains as a whole showed up 14,232 times, with wheat at 11.7% and rice at 8.2%.

The Citric Acid Problem

Citric acid is in 7,950 products, making up 38.4% of everything we analyzed. Chemical additives had 11,245 appearances total. Do you think that citric acid comes from fresh lemons and limes? It does not.

Industrial citric acid is manufactured through a fermentation process. They feed sugars from corn to a black mold called Aspergillus niger. The mold ferments the sugars and produces citric acid as a byproduct. This is why our corn-sensitive and mold-sensitive clients react to it. It sets off alarms in the immune system immediately.

The Soy Footprint You Can’t Escape

The soy cluster hit 7,549 appearances. Soybean itself is in 22.5% of products and soy lecithin is in 14.0%. It acts as an emulsifier to keep processed foods from separating on the shelf.

Many people try to avoid soy by buying ‘soy-free’ alternative products. The problem is that manufacturers just swap in sunflower lecithin instead. We found sunflower in 2,409 products (11.6%). Sunflower is highly cross-reactive. Swapping one industrial seed oil derivative for another just trades one symptom for another.

Synthetic Dyes Are Still Everywhere

We logged 6,633 appearances of synthetic dyes. FD&C Red #40 leads the pack in 2,017 products (9.8%). Yellow #5 is in 1,396 products. Blue #1 is in 1,287 products. These petroleum-derived chemicals are everywhere.

Synthetic dyes are on the MRT panel because they trigger immune-mediated inflammatory responses. Your white blood cells see these foreign chemicals and release mediators like histamine and cytokines to fight them off. The ensuing inflammation causes headaches, skin rashes, and brain fog.

The Stealth Triggers: Garlic, Onion, and ‘Health Foods’

Not all triggers are unpronounceable chemicals. The ‘healthy’ stealth triggers cluster showed up 13,862 times. Garlic (17.7%) and onion (15.5%) are in nearly everything labeled ‘seasoned’ or ‘savory’. If you react to them on your MRT results, eating out or buying pre-made soups becomes incredibly difficult.

Then we have the ‘allergen-free’ health foods. Companies use oat (5.7%), tapioca (5.5%), coconut (6.8%), and almond (4.2%) to replace wheat and dairy. These are whole foods, but they are still MRT triggers. When you swap your standard bread for a gluten-free loaf full of tapioca and react just as badly, this is why.

What This Means for Your LEAP Protocol

This data proves why Phase 1 of your LEAP protocol is so strict. We pull you off all packaged foods and have you eat single-ingredient whole foods because the grocery store is a minefield. You cannot heal your gut when you are eating citric acid and soy lecithin multiple times a day.

In Phase 2, as you start adding mixed foods back in, you must check every single label. We built the Wellbloom Food Checker tool so you can quickly see the MRT trigger count for any product. You type in the food, and it scans the ingredients against the panel.