Is there any such thing as a healthy crisp/chip?
"Buying the baked chips is basically robbing Peter to pay Paul by swapping one set of toxins for another. In fact, the baked chips may actually be the more unhealthy choice in the final analysis as the baked chips are more highly processed than the fried chips and contain more genetically modified ingredients and likely a bit of neurotoxic mercury to boot." Sarah Pope - The Healthy Home Economist
One of life's coincidences occurred last night as we were watching the television. An ad for Arnott's cracker chips appeared. Alas I had not been paying attention (I don't pay attention to the ads) and therefore did not see the beginning of the advertisement. All I saw was a chip puffing up in the oven and looking delectable - like those on the front of the packet. Since I had written about actual potato crisps yesterday, and had said I might look at 'healthy alternatives' some time, I felt I was somehow receiving a message from the ether. So here I go on alternatives to potato chips/crisps. Are they better?
Short answer - probably not unless you make your own. Longer answer - well frustratingly incomplete really.
Particularly frustrating is not being able to find out what exactly what is in Arnott's cracker chips. Obviously I - and you - can find out if we take the packet off the shelf and read the list of ingredients. And I will. But not today. However, from all my searching on the net the most definitive answer I can find about the whole potato/vegetable crisp debate is that you should carefully read the ingredients and nutrition lists in the small print on the back of the packets.
And what you should look for is:
a minimum number of ingredients
a defined fat - e.g. sunflower or canola oil. If the fat is not defined it is likely to be something evil like palm oil or recycled oil, both of which are high in nasties
a low percentage of fat - some chips/crisps have up to 50% fat content
a low percentage of salt - sodium - less than 100mg - preferably not much at all
no chemical additives for colour or flavour - indeed do not buy 'flavoured' products
no sugar - yes sugar. Sometimes if the product is lower in fat it is higher in sugar.
if it claims to be vegetable then there should be actual vegetable in it - not reconstituted or completely artificial vegetable.
Seeing that Arnott's had a previous product - Vita-Wheat chips - which were basically made from the same ingredients that go into Vita-Wheat, then I suspect that the cracker chips are actually made from some kind of flour - like the Pringles. They are not vegetable at all. Just crackers shaped differently with maybe more salt. In fact the packet at the top of the page proudly proclaims the salt. 'Sea salt' might taste better and be more 'natural' but it's still salt. And this probably applies to a whole range of other products too.
"Instead of potatoes or corn fried in oil and sprinkled with salt, these creatures were made from weird ingredients, and shaped in weird ways, and they tasted like…well, not food exactly. Something different." Eat This, Not That
So is baked better? Some chips/crisps claim to be baked after all. Well yes, they do tend to have a bit less fat - though again - check this on the label - but apparently they also tend to add sugar for some reason.
"Buying the baked chips is basically robbing Peter to pay Paul by swapping one set of toxins for another. In fact, the baked chips may actually be the more unhealthy choice in the final analysis as the baked chips are more highly processed than the fried chips and contain more genetically modified ingredients and likely a bit of neurotoxic mercury to boot." Sarah Pope - The Healthy Home Economist
This article by Sarah Pope, by the way, was relatively informative.
And what about vegetable chips/crisps? Are these better for you? Well if we are talking about 'as opposed to potatoes' which are vegetables after all, then maybe. Depends on the vegetable and depends on whether the real vegetable has been used and not some artificial paste with vegetable colouring and flavour added. And if they are 'real' then it also probably depends on whether you like the taste or not. Do check the label - because just because it looks like beetroot or carrot or whatever, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is. And then there is the dreaded kale chip. The ones below from a small Byron Bay company called Extraordinary Foods, are a typical high end 'health food' product. Expensive - they cost $7.95 for 45g - that's around a massive $176 a kilo!!! I think they are dehydrated, not baked.
But you can, of course, make your own. Then you will know exactly what has gone into them. I give you three examples.
Jamie Oliver who bakes his without any fat at all. He merely sprinkles them with a flavoured salt at the end.
Maggie Beer who shows you how to make kale chips with parmesan. And she does use a bit of oil. Now I know that kale chips have become very popular, and they may well be very good, but why not spinach, or silver beet, or rocket - in fact any leafy green vegetable. What's so wonderful about kale?
And BBC Good Food who give five examples of baked and flavoured vegetable crisps. They do use some oil, but not a lot.
And if you are making your own, then you should probably invest in a mandoline. But be very careful. It's a dangerous tool. A friend sliced his finger the other day when he used his, and had to have four stitches!
I also believe that some of the 'health food' varieties are dehydrated rather than baked. So if you have a dehydrator, then you can probably use that too.
I suspect you really have to add some salt or they will just be plain dull. Well maybe the stronger flavoured vegetables like carrot or beetroot or parsnip might just be OK. But if you do add salt, be sparing. And that's from a bit of a salt addict. No that's too strong. I don't cook with salt any more but I do add some at the table.
Ironically on all of the comparison sites that I checked out, almost all of them came down on the side of good old plain unflavoured potato chips if they were cooked in low quantities of sunflower or canola oil and didn't have a lot of salt. For potato chips do tend to have just three ingredients - potatoes, oil and salt and none of those nasty chemical extras, (unless they are flavoured) some of which are toxic and possibly carcinogens. So it's alright to eat potato chips very occasionally in small quantities, or to make your own - but it's an occasional party food people, not a daily part of your diet. Or on a ramble through the Essex countryside in summer. A real treat.
"Ah, a bowl of potato chips. The forbidden fruit of the vegetable world. A staple food of Homer Simpson. Refuge of the socially awkward at parties. Salty, oily, and compulsively eatable -- is there anything not dangerously awful about this beloved snack?" Thrillist
