General Tso chicken
by Tiantang
Scores 100/100 on FDA SAFFA + CSPI ingredient analysis , with no flagged ingredients identified.
The verdict
General Tso chicken by Tiantang scores 100/100 in PlainFoodSafe's ingredient screening. We compared its 38 labeled ingredients with FDA SAFFA regulatory records and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings; 0 ingredients are flagged for caution. The source parser split this into a very long 38-component record, beginning with Skinless Chicken Breast Chunk Fritters With Rib Meat, Water, Seasoning. That density can include amounts and label fragments, so verify the physical label before relying on ingredient order or completeness. This is not a recall, allergy, medical, or dietary-safety determination.
- 100/100
- Safe safety score
- 0
- flagged ingredients of 38 analyzed
- Group 4
- Ultra-processed
- D
- Nutri-Score nutrition grade
Computed directly from OpenFoodFacts ingredient data cross-referenced with FDA SAFFA and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings. See our methodology for the scoring formula.
What the Data Says About General Tso chicken
General Tso chicken by Tiantang carries a composite safety score of 100/100, which we classify as "Safe" on our four-tier shelf-label framework.
Of the 38 ingredients parsed from this label, 13 are covered by a regulator or watchdog we screen against (Disodium Guanylate, Disodium Inosinate, Wheat Gluten and 10 others), with 10 carrying an FDA Substances Added to Food (SAFFA) status and 6 a CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating. The remaining 25 ingredients appear in neither registry, so they neither raise nor lower the score. Each additive rated caution-or-worse penalizes the composite. Product data originates from the OpenFoodFacts collaborative catalog; safety annotations come from federal regulators and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. This score is a transparent derived index we compute from that public data, not an official FDA rating or endorsement; see the Methodology page for the exact weighting.
Our scan did not identify any ingredients in this product that FDA SAFFA or CSPI Chemical Cuisine data flags as requiring caution or avoidance at the time of analysis. That is a meaningful clean-label signal, though it does not account for personal allergens, regional recalls, or inspection findings not reflected in federal additive databases. The per-ingredient breakdown below shows the source-level classification for each component.
On the NOVA processing scale, General Tso chicken is classified as Group 4 (Ultra-processed). NOVA measures industrial processing intensity rather than ingredient-level safety, so it complements the SAFFA and CSPI ratings: a product can be clean on additive flags but heavily processed, or lightly processed but carry individually flagged ingredients. Combining both lenses gives a fuller picture than either alone.
How the three scores on this page were derived
Within the four-tier shelf-label framework this site publishes, the composite for this product falls in the highest band. That band is defined by a threshold on the derived score alone: it is where labels land once components carrying caution-or-worse registry ratings contribute little or nothing to the deduction. The band is a summary of what the screened registries return for the components that were parsed, so it inherits their coverage gaps — a component absent from both registries neither raises nor lowers the figure. The threshold and the weighting behind it are set out on the methodology page.
This label falls in the fourth Nutri-Score band. The model arrives there when its penalty terms — energy density, sugars, saturated fat, sodium — carry more weight in the calculation than the fibre, protein and produce content it credits. The band covers a wide span of the points scale, so position within it is not visible from the letter alone. The grade reflects the declared nutrition panel and is unrelated to the additive ratings listed below, which come from different bodies applying different criteria.
The declared list is among the longer ones in this catalogue. A component set this wide means the screen returns many individual ratings, and the composite accumulates a large number of small contributions instead of turning on a handful of entries. At this length the per-component table below is substantially more informative than the single figure, because the figure compresses a great deal of variation into one number.
Safety Profile at a Glance
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| PlainFoodSafe Score | 100/100 | FDA SAFFA + CSPI composite |
| Flagged ingredients | 0 | CSPI/FDA review |
| NOVA processing group | Group 4 | OpenFoodFacts |
| Nutri-Score | D | OpenFoodFacts |
Composite metric derived from FDA SAFFA, CSPI Chemical Cuisine, OpenFoodFacts. See methodology.
How It Compares to Its Category
Among the 13,350 products we've scored in the Meats and their products category, the average safety score is 92.4/100. General Tso chicken scores 7.6 points above that category average (100/100 vs. 92.4/100), so it is a comparatively strong pick for shoppers screening within that category specifically, rather than against the product catalog as a whole.
Ingredient-list length vs other Meats and their products products
General Tso chicken lists 38 ingredients on its label
38 97th percentile a longer ingredient list than 97% of the 11,159 products we track
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more products. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Distribution as text
- 0–2
- 78 products (1%)
- 2–4
- 431 products (4%)
- 4–6
- 611 products (5%)
- 6–8
- 1,397 products (13%)
- 8–10
- 1,483 products (13%)
- 10–12
- 1,701 products (15%)
- 12–14
- 1,459 products (13%)
- 14–16
- 997 products (9%)
- 16–18
- 735 products (7%)
- 18–20
- 489 products (4%)
- 20–22
- 377 products (3%)
- 22–24
- 278 products (2%)
- 24–26
- 234 products (2%)
- 26–28
- 140 products (1%)
- 28–30
- 145 products (1%)
- 30–32
- 93 products (1%)
- 32–34
- 82 products (1%)
- 34–36
- 67 products (1%)
- 36–38
- 74 products (1%)
- 38–40
- 50 products (0%)
- 40 and above
- 238 products (2%)
Source Open Food Facts, product label ingredient lists · July 2026
Ingredient-list length is a descriptive property of the label, not a safety rating. A longer list is not automatically worse and a shorter one is not automatically better; the count is shown so the label can be placed against a comparable population. The comparison here runs against the 11,159 Meats and their products products we publish with a parsed label, not against the whole catalogue, because list length varies far more between categories than within one.
Ingredient Safety Analysis
Full Ingredient List
Skinless chicken breast chunk fritters with rib meat, water, seasoning (rice flour, sugar, dried onion, maltodextrin, chicken, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate), lemon juice, rosemary extract, sodium phosphates, bleached wheat flour, wheat flour, salt, dried garlic, soybean oil, yeast, citric acid, sodium bicarbonate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, monocalcium phosphate, yellow corn flour, rice flour, wheat gluten, high fructose corn syrup, soy sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt), sodium benzoate (preservative), sake (water, rice, salt), modified corn starch, sesame seeds, spices, garlic powder, xanthan gum.
Other products containing Organic Sake
Organic Sake is the least common ingredient on this label, appearing in 244 products across the catalog. See its safety profile.
Categories
Data Sources
Data as of July 2026. Source: OpenFoodFacts, FDA SAFFA, CSPI Chemical Cuisine.
Product data from OpenFoodFacts (ODbL). Ingredient safety ratings from FDA SAFFA and CSPI Chemical Cuisine. See our methodology for details.
This information is for reference only and does not constitute dietary or medical advice.
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Every figure on PlainFoodSafe is rendered directly from OpenFoodFacts and FDA data, no number is typed in by an editor. Product figures are computed directly from OpenFoodFacts, FDA SAFFA, and CSPI Chemical Cuisine data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of July 2026.
