Alternative Chips: Are They a Healthy Snack?

When you visit your local supermarket for a bag of chips these days, potato chips aren’t your only option. As you walk down the crowded aisles of the snack food section, you’ll discover a dizzying variety of alternative chips, particularly if you’re shopping in a natural food market. While you may feel virtuous selecting a bag of baked beet or carrot chips over the heavily salted, deep fried chips that are the American standard; are these alternative chips really healthier or just designed to make you feel like you’re choosing a more nutritious option?

What types of alternative chips are you likely to be confronted with when your next snack craving hits? Seaweed chips, once the domain of Asian food stores can now be found lining the shelves of natural food markets, capitalizing on the growing sushi trend among young people. Veggie chip alternatives continue to multiply made from such diverse vegetables as kale, spinach, parsnips, sweet potatoes, and squash. Then there are lentil chips, rice chips, soy chips, and other whole grain varieties, all competing for the limited consumer snack dollar. The options for alternative chips have never been greater or more overwhelming.

Despite the many choices, are these alternative chips really healthier than their deep fried counterparts? Many of the so-called “veggie” chips are deceptively low in vegetable matter. If you read the ingredient label on a package of alternative chips, vegetables aren’t always the first ingredients you see, meaning that the actual vegetable content is pretty low. Many veggie chips are made of a small amount of pureed vegetables added to potato flour along with food coloring to give a realistic vegetable color. Although they may be appealing to the taste buds, the nutritional value isn’t there.

Although some alternative chips are baked, others are deep fried and contain large amounts of fat and calories, sometimes even more than conventional potato chips. Then there’s the salt. Many of these chips have a high sodium content to add extra flavor and taste appeal. Even when veggie chips are made of vegetable matter, they’re usually cooked to such high heat that most of the nutritional value is destroyed. Reading the label reveals how dismally low the vitamin content really is in those “healthy” alternative chips.

Where does this leave the snack hungry consumer? Carefully reading labels and choosing alternative chips that are lower in fat and sodium can help you make a better choice, as well as selecting ones that have vegetables listed as the first ingredient. Another option is to make baked veggie chips at home. A variety of recipes for making healthy chips can be found online.

Keep in mind that the best chip alternative might be fresh vegetable slices dipped into a container of low fat, French onion dip. When it comes to healthy snacks, it pays to think out of the bag.