What's the Nutritional Cost of those Chips?

The Journal of Food Composition and Analysis says 30% of the average American diet consists of junk food; that being food supplying little or no nutrients in exchange for the calories. In other words, processed foods such as potato chips made from potato starch deep fried in oil, versus slices of whole potato baked in a pan. One is a whole food while the other is a modified, processed food.

The difference is in taking that innocent potato, peeling (much good nutrients in the peeling), squeezing the liquid from the mash (more of the nutrients stripped away), drying, then reconstituting with a water and chemicals bath to retard bacteria, forming into shapes (fries, hash browns, etc.) and sending them off to a deep fat fryer near you. No, they don't always dry the mash, I know that, so sue me. This isn't a research paper, but a newsletter so let me have my fun.

That's why it's called a "processed" food. The potato once skinned, mashed, dried, bleached and bathed in chemicals eventually creates a substance completely devoid of nutrients and fiber. Food processors like it because it doesn't spoil and can create a uniform product such as Pringles (TM). Where's the fun in chips that all look exactly alike? I prefer those you might find on EBay that resemble people or the state of Florida and I'm not the only one. Check out the Potato Chip Gallery for plenty of fine example of people who go so far as to collect oddly shaped chips.

Lots of companies make potato chips the old fashioned way, slicing, cooking, then serving. If you make an occasional chip a treat, instead of something you eat by the bagful, you'll find a gourmet experience in the eating.

Better Made Potato Chips (actual company name) says potatoes are 80% water so they yield 20 pounds of chips for every 100 pounds of potatoes. That explains why processed foods cost far more than whole foods. I keep hearing the argument that processed foods are cheap and whole foods are expensive, but I think the opposite is true.

Where I live fresh whole potatoes start at 35 cents a pound while plain potato chips are $4.29 for a 14 ounce bag (ouch!), roughly $4.90 per pound. So the same money buys you either 14 pounds of fresh potatoes or 14 ounces of chips. If money's tight in your house, skip the chips and go straight to the produce aisle.

What About The Nutritional Cost?

• Baked Potato with Skin: 4 oz, (cost: 9 cents)
  • Calories: 124 calories
  • Carbs: 28.8
  • Fat: 0
  • Sodium: 0

• Potato Chips, 4 oz serving (which is a pretty little serving too) (cost: $1.23 )
  • Calories: 440 calories
  • Carbs: 92
  • Fat: 8
  • Sodium: 600

Recipes: Oven Fried Potato Chips

Potato Candy
This is not a joke. Potato flour is used by those who can't have gluten, so it's not farfetched at all to use potato flour in candy

More Fun Facts to Know and Tell about Potato Chips:
Here's the straight scoop on whether those weird green potato chips safe to eat? What about those funny looking burnt up bits?

Men and Their Potatoes (not what you might by thinking).

Can you see why it takes me so long to get these newsletters done? I get all distracted following links for things like what men do with potato guns. I started a new blog to keep track of some of my wanderings, and you might find it amusing as well. For now it's called Katy's Morning Rant: Adventures of a Scattered Brained Redhead, but it has nothing at all to do with weight loss, so I only mention it here because I'm again, off topic.