Hi, I'm Earl. Product Manager at Veggie Chips
Veggie chips taste great, but are they healthy for you? I used to give a downright “No” to veggie chips. My reasoning was that veggie chips are not actually made of vegetables (not in the sense you would expect them to be.) Looking on the ingredients list of veggie chips, you will notice that the main ingredient is usually potato flour. The following ingredients may include processed foods such as tomato powder, spinach powder, and other kinds of powders. Essentially, the only “veggie” in veggie chips is the flavoring. Thus, you could make the argument that a plain Lay’s potato chip dressed in tomato powder is a veggie chip. However, the companies that produce veggie chips market the food in such a way to create healthy connotations for the food. The packaging is often more earthy- , natural-looking than your average bag of chips. There might be claims such as “Less than 8g of fat,” or “Full serving of vegetables.” My suggestion is to ignore all of the misleading information surrounding veggie chips.
However, there is a psychological component to veggie chips that might put the snack on top of a plain old bag of chips in terms of which snack is “healthier.” My father brought home a box of veggie chips the past month, and I found myself savoring the crunchy, puffy snacks. After eating one of these veggie chips, I gained a sense of empowerment. I felt like I was doing my body a favor. In a way, I am doing myself a favor every time I choose veggie chips over a normal bag of chips, since veggie chips do contain slightly less fat than normal potato chips. More importantly, the feeling of making the right choice reinforced later decisions to forgo other unhealthy foods. On the other hand, if I ate a bag of Dorritos, I would probably not have the mental boost to be on the lookout for choosing the healthy option during my next hunger craving.
What all the above boils down to is to urge you to realize that veggie chips are not nutritionally healthier than other kinds of chips, but if you find yourself craving a bag of chips, go for the veggie chips instead of the Lay’s. Hopefully, those veggie chips will fuel more than just your body. Hopefully, the veggie chips will fuel your mind to make the healthier decision once your next choice arrives.
