My wife came home with some new chips the other day. We’re always looking for a healthy snack. I have to munch on something salty in order to drink water. I just cannot drink water without help.
Anyway, these looked promising. They are the Garden Veggie Crisps made by EatSmart Naturals, a division of Snyder’s of Hanover. This product promises to be “No-GMO” (it’s certified… somehow) and gluten-free and made with potato, tomato, and spinach. Indeed, the crisps are yellow/white, redish, and green. All-in-all, these appear to be a healthy product. Oh, and they are sponsor of the Nature Conservancy.
I freely admit that I too have given money to the Nature Conservancy.
But that’s all appearance and marketing. If you actually look at the nutrition label, you’ll see that this is 100% marketing. These products are actually less healthy than the local corn chips I usually buy.
|
|
INGREDIENTS: Potato Flour, Potato Starch, Expeller Pressed Sunflower Oil, Tomato, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Spinach Powder, Turmeric, Beet Powder. Allergy Information: Produced in a facility that handles peanut butter. Gluten-free.There is almost no actual nutrition in this product. Nearly half the calories are from fat. There’s almost no vitamins and minerals in these things. There’s a fair bit of sodium, though not that much. I can’t taste it and I’m hyper sensitive to salt content.
The best thing that this has going for it is a touch of dietary fiber and a minuscule amount of protein.
Let’s compare to the corn chips that I routinely get. Apologies, but the local manufacturer doesn’t actually put the nutrition info online, so I had to copy it.
I will note that both of these products have the same serving size (30 grams). That’s 21 chips (more or less) for the veggie crisps and 10 chips for the tortilla chips. Of course, if anyone actually only eats 10 chips… they have a lot more will-power than I do.
- Calories – 140
- calories from fat – 60
- Total fat – 6g (9%)
- Saturated fat – 1g (5%)
- Trans fat – 0
- Cholesterol – 0
- Sodium – 0mg
- Total Crbs – 19g (6%)
- Dietary fiber – 2g (8%)
- sugars – 0
- Protein – 2g
- Vitamin A – 0
- Vitamin C – 0
- Calcium – 4%
- Iron – 6%
- Ingredients – Stone ground white corn, 100% corn oil, trace of lime
OK, that’s pretty close actually. My corn chips have slightly more saturated fat, but much less sodium and potassium. The corn chips also have more calcium and iron.
OK, I admit I’m picking hairs here. But these Veggie Crisps are marketed. They are promoted as healthy food. They… aren’t.
I haven’t done the statistics here, but this bag of $4 Veggie Crisps is probably not statistically different (nutritionally) than the $1.50 bag corn chips. Actually, I’d give the corn chips the edge in healthy on the basis of salt alone (and that minuscule extra amount of minerals).
In case you’re curious, these are the El Milagro Restaurant Style Chips.
Think skeptically about food. Even better… think about your food and how it affects your body. For example, through years of observation, I know that I need a crap load of fiber (no pun intended). I need almost double the fiber of ‘normal people’. I generally have two fiber bars a day, just to keep up.
I also know that I don’t like salt. I try not to eat it because it drives me nuts.
Anyway, read the nutrition label. Try to eat things that are actually nutritious. Food that provides vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, etc. Organic or GMO or conventional doesn’t matter. It’s food. High fructose corn syrup doesn’t matter. If you know anything about the chemistry you’ll know why. It’s the nutritional factors that are important.
Figure out what you need and go with that. There’s a huge difference in nutrition requirements between a runner, a weight-lifter, a couch potato, etc. Consult an expert and I’ll be happy to share what I know.
Just don’t fall for the marketing hype.
