Product Insight: frito lay
frito lay by Lay's, Smartfood is tracked in PlainIngredients with 3 identified ingredients and carries an overall safety rating of 3.7 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 no Nutri-Score label has been assigned by Open Food Facts contributors. Within the identified ingredient list, 1 ingredient is currently flagged as Caution or High Risk and warrant individual review via the linked ingredient pages, while 2 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
- Monosodium Glutamate — Safety score: 2/5
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
o cheetos donchy cheese flavored snacks: enriched corn meal (corn meal, ferrous sulfate, niacin, thiamin monoi tra'e, riboflavin, folic acid), vegetable oil (corn, canola, baked lay's barbecue flavored potato crisps: dried potatoes, corn starch, corn oil, sugar, salt, soy le. hin, onion powder, maltodextrin (made fror. corn), dextrose, brown sugar, 0% whey proteli concentrae, onion powder, cheddar cheese (milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), monosodium glutamate, blue cheese (milk, cheese cultures, sa'., enzymes), citric acid, baked ruffles cheddar & sour cream fla oret potato crisps: dried potatoes, corn s ar h, corn oil, sugar, maltodextrin (made from ccrn), salt, soy ler ithin, dextrose, whey, artificial color (yellow 6 lake, yellow 5 lake, yellow 5, yellow 6), skim milk, natural and artificial fiavors, garlic powder, lactic a id, disodium inosinate, and disodi m guanylate. baked lay's barbecue flavored potato crisps has 65% less fat than regular potato chips. fat coitent of regul
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
- Lay's, Smartfood
- Barcode
- 0028400308502
- 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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