I am working with a structured JSON dataset where each ingredient contains relational metadata such as:

• reacts_with

• affected_by

• compatible_with

A simplified structure is like this:

{
  "category": "surfactants",
  "ingredients": [
    {
      "name": "sodium stearate",
      "reacts_with": ["calcium", "magnesium"],
      "affected_by": ["hard_water"],
      "compatible_with": ["nonionic_surfactants"]
    }
  ]
}

The full dataset (for reference): https://cleanformulation.com/data/ingredients-dataset.json

I am trying to find:

1. all ingredients affected by "hard_water"
2. all ingredients that react with "calcium"

I am currently using a simple PHP loop like this:

This works for small data, but becomes inefficient as the dataset grows, I have to loop through all categories and ingredients every time
It feels redundant when querying multiple relationships

Is there a better way in PHP to query these relationships without full iteration each time?