Danish pastries
Snacks / Sweet snacks / Biscuits and cakes / Cakes
Product Insight: Danish pastries
Danish pastries by Little Debbie is tracked in PlainIngredients with 12 identified ingredients and carries an overall safety rating of 4.3 out of 5 — a Low-Risk-to-Safe tier backed by FDA and EU regulatory status. On the NOVA processing scale, this product falls into Group 4 (Ultra-processed foods), a standard framework for classifying how heavily food has been industrially modified before reaching the shelf, and Its Nutri-Score grade is E, the European front-of-pack nutritional label summarizing calories, saturated fat, sodium, sugar, protein, fiber, and produce content. Within the identified ingredient list, no ingredient on this product currently carries a Caution or High-Risk flag in our database, while 11 ingredients sit at the Low-Risk or Safe end of the scale.
Our composite score weighs each ingredient's U.S. FDA regulatory status (GRAS, Approved, or Banned), European Union food-additive status under Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, any U.S. state-level restrictions, and signals drawn from peer-reviewed toxicology literature. The per-product score is the mean of the per-ingredient ratings and should be read as a structured summary rather than a clinical verdict; edge cases such as cumulative exposure, individual allergies, and dietary interactions are not captured by a single number and are better addressed by reading the individual ingredient pages linked below.
Sources: Open Food Facts (product + ingredient list, CC0 licensed) · FDA SAFFA · EU Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 · U.S. state food-safety statutes
Ingredient Safety Breakdown
Processing Level
Ultra-processed products are formulations made mostly or entirely from substances derived from foods and additives. They typically contain ingredients not commonly used in home cooking.
Full Ingredients List
Enriched bleached flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate [vitamin b1], riboflavin [vitamin b2], folic acid), sugar, water, margarine (palm oil, water, salt, monoglycerides, whey, sodium benzoate [preservative], natural and artificial flavor, citric acid, beta carotene color, vitamin a palmitate), cherries. contains 2% or less of each of the following: soybean oil, eggs, yeast, palm oil, dextrose, egg whites, pasteurized cultured cream and milk, salt, emulsifiers (mono - and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl lactylate), calcium carbonate, modified corn and tapioca starches, corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, calcium propionate and potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate and sorbic acid and tocopherols to retain freshness, defatted enzyme-active soy flour, corn syrup, guar and cellulose and xanthan and locust bean gums, milk blend (nonfat milk, whey), citric acid, wheat gluten, natural and artificial flavors, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate), wheat
Data Sources
- Open Food Facts — Product data and ingredient lists
- FDA Substances Added to Food (SAFFA) Inventory — Safety scores
- EU Food Additive Regulations (EC) No 1333/2008
Product Details
- Brand
- Little Debbie
- Barcode
- 0024300044502
- Nutri-Score
- Grade E
- NOVA Group
- 4 — Ultra-processed foods
- Available In
- United States
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Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
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