Is Chips Ahoy! Original Chocolate Chip Cookies ultra-processed?
Yes, it's ultra-processed
- 1 Unprocessed
- 2 Kitchen staple
- 3 Processed
- 4 Ultra-processed
Signs of ultra-processing in its ingredients:
- 27 ingredients
- 6 additives
- Nutri-Score E
Less processed biscuits
Ingredients
Ultra-processing Processing
flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate (vitamin b1), riboflavin, folic acid), semisweet chocolate chips (sugar (processing marker), chocolate, dextrose (ultra-processing marker), cocoa butter, soy lecithin (ultra-processing marker), natural flavor (ultra-processing marker), nonfat milk), sugar (processing marker), soybean, canola oil, palm oil, high fructose corn syrup (ultra-processing marker), leavening (baking soda, ammonium phosphate), salt (processing marker), NATURAL and ARTIFICIAL FAVOR, caramel color
Additives: E150c Ammonia caramel , E322 Lecithins , E322i Lecithin , E342 Ammonium phosphate , E500 Sodium carbonates , E500ii Sodium hydrogen carbonate
As written on the pack
UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], FOLIC ACID), SEMISWEET CHOCOLATE CHIPS (SUGAR, CHOCOLATE, DEXTROSE, COCOA BUTTER, SOY LECITHIN, NATURAL FLAVOR, NONFAT MILK), SUGAR, SOYBEAN AND/OR CANOLA OIL, PALM OIL, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA, AMMONIUM PHOSPHATE), SALT, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FAVOR, CARAMEL COLOR.
What makes it ultra-processed
Cosmetic additives
Added to change how the food looks, feels or tastes, not to keep it safe. A hallmark of ultra-processed food.
- E150c Ammonia caramel Ammonia caramel is a brown colour made by heating sugars with ammonia compounds.
- E322 Lecithins Lecithins are fatty substances extracted mostly from soybeans, sunflower seeds or eggs, used as emulsifiers to keep fat and water mixed, for example in chocolate.
- Flavouring Flavourings are concentrated aroma preparations that add or intensify a taste.
Substances rarely used in home kitchens
Refined or extracted in factories, such as syrups made from starch or isolated proteins. The other hallmark of ultra-processed food.
- Dextrose Dextrose is pure glucose crystallised from starch-derived syrup.
- Glucose Glucose, usually listed as glucose syrup, is cheap, keeps products moist and stops sugar from crystallising.
- High fructose corn syrup High-fructose corn syrup is made from corn starch: enzymes break it down to glucose and convert part of that into fructose, giving a syrup about as sweet as table sugar.
- Fructose Fructose is the sugar found naturally in fruit and honey, but as an ingredient it is refined industrially, mostly from corn starch.
3 ingredients that would only make it processed
Kitchen staples like sugar, salt and oil. On their own they make a food processed, not ultra-processed.
Among 1,514 biscuits
From least to most processed, this one ranks 1268th. 83% of the biscuits here are ultra-processed.
About this information
- Data from this product on Open Food Facts (barcode 0044000043148, last edited 20 April 2026), available under the Open Database License. If something is wrong or the recipe has changed, you can correct it there.
- Photo: Open Food Facts contributors, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- The NOVA group is an automated estimate from crowdsourced data: a missing or mistyped ingredient can change it.
- NOVA measures processing, not nutrition. For nutrition, Open Food Facts gives this product a Nutri-Score of E (from A, best, to E).
- General information, not medical or dietary advice. Check the pack if you have an allergy.