The Little Debbie snack food company makes a cookie treat called Star Crunch. Star Crunch cookies consist of a rice-type cereal base covered with caramel and then topped with a layer of fudge. Not surprisingly, they contain a significant amount of calories, carbohydrates, fat and sodium. However, many reviewers attest to their delicious flavor, even attempting homemade versions when the store is out.
Calories
Little Debbie Star Crunch cookies come in two sizes, regular and large. The regular cookie contains 150 calories, while the large cookies contains almost twice the calories, 290 calories per cookie. If you are an average adult with a typical diet of 2,000 calories per day, these cookies provide between 7 1/2 percent to 14 percent of your daily caloric intake.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates provide your body with the fuel or energy you need for physical activity and for proper organ function. The best sources of carbohydrates include whole grains, vegetables, fruits and beans, which provide vitamins, minerals and fiber. The easily digested refined carbohydrates from white bread, pastries and sugary snack treats, such as Little Debbie Star Crunch cookies, contribute to weight gain, interfere with weight loss and may promote diabetes and heart disease. Overall, Little Debbie Star Crunch contains 22 g of carbohydrates for the regular size cookies, and 43 g of carbohydrates for the large. These carbohydrates come mostly from the sugar, corn syrup, enriched bleached flour, rice flour, molasses and corn starch ingredients.
Fat
Little Debbie Star Crunch cookies contain about 6 g of fat in their regular cookies, and 12 g of fat in the large cookies. A little over half of this fat is saturated fat. Saturated fat increases your risk of heart disease by increase your overall levels of LDL or "bad" cholesterol. Sources of saturated fat include animal products such as meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy products, lard and butter, as well as coconut, palm and other tropical oils. The saturated fat in Star Crunch cookies comes from cottonseed oil, eggs, butter, coconut and milk ingredients.
Sodium
Regular Star Crunch cookies contain 65 mg of sodium per cookie, while the large version contains about 130 mg of sodium per cookie. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the Institute of Medicine and the American Heart Association recommend healthy adults limit sodium intake to about 1,500 mg to 2,300 mg per day. One large cookies provides almost 10 percent of that daily limit. High dietary intake of sodium can lead to high blood pressure, increasing your risk of heart attack and stroke, as well as osteoporosis, a disease affecting bone strength.
Iron
Little Debbie Star Crunch cookies contain a small amount of your recommended daily intake for iron. Regular cookies contain about 2 percent of your daily needs, while the large cookies contain about 6 percent. Low iron levels can lead to anemia, with symptoms leaving you tired, weak and pale. Iron helps produce hemoglobin. Hemoglobin helps your red blood cells transport oxygen to other parts of your body. The source of iron for Star Crunch cookies comes from the iron-enriched flour they contain, as well as molasses.
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