Today at Ask Erik we're going to tackle something a bit less nerdy and a bit more healthy. With obesity rates and health concerns racking up medical bills across the country, and with the recent news that obesity can become an issue for children before they even enter school it seems like people are cutting unhealthy stuff in more and more ways and trying to replace it with a healthy "alternative."
But is it really that much better for you?
To Erik: Are baked potato chips really healthier than fried potato chips?
Yes and no.
Yes, in the sense that you aren't getting the fat and calories from how potato chips are deep fried, that much is obvious. In fact, there's a 14% decrease in calories, on average, between the two styles. You also have a 67% decrease in saturated fat (3% to 1%) when you change to baked.
So why don't I eat them?
Because there's more to health than fat and calories.
For example:
1) Sodium.
Some baked chips have less sodium. I find that the standard, basic, boring Lay's and Ruffles chips tend to have less sodium than the fried version, but let's look at the flavored styles because let's be honest, everybody loves flavored potato chips.
Cheddar and sour cream Ruffles clock in at 180 mg of sodium.
Their baked equivalent brings 270 mg of sodium to the party.
I also looked at the Lay's sour cream and onion chips, and the difference between fried and baked is 160 to 210 mg of sodium, respectively.
2) Vitamin C
That's right, it's not just for oranges anymore.
Potatoes are, amazingly enough, a pretty decent source of vitamin C if you happen to be citric intolerant. That might not actually be a thing, but I'm making it one now. However, health studies have shown that baking a potato in high heat for an extended amount of time causes the vitamins to break down, so you get less. This means that while traditional potato chips might contain up to 10 percent of your daily required Vitamin C, baked potato chips might only contain up to 4 percent.
3) Cancer
I'm going to quote Wikipedia here:
"Acrylamide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula C3H5NO."
(Editing out stuff not necessary...)
"Acrylamide is a known lethal neurotoxin (median lethal dose in rabbit - 150 mg/kg) and animal carcinogen. Its discovery in some cooked starchy foods in 2002 prompted concerns about the carcinogenicity of those foods."
This chemical forms at the same time the vitamins in potatoes are breaking down, namely when a potato cooks in high heat. The FDA found that a bag of Lay's standard potato chips had, on average, less than 500 ppb. Baked, on the other hand, ranked at over a thousand ppb.
So, what does that mean? What is "ppb?"
Well, this is where you have to start investigating the science. "PPB" stands for "parts per billion." Think of it as one drop of ink in a tanker truck full of water. Now, to be fair, in some things "one part per billion" would still be extremely dangerous, especially if it's only one drop added to a tanker truck full of water. Your rabbit probably won't die if you feed it a bag of potato chips...at least, not immediately from neurotoxin, that is.
As there's no clear cut science as to how likely you are to get cancer from potato chips (as of yet, anyway), what does this all mean?
What it means is, no matter whether they're baked for fried, kettle cooked or "handcooked," potato chips aren't "healthy" foods. You're going to take a hit on your body somewhere, just like you will with almost any food you eat, so the important thing is portion control, and that tends to be where most dietitians believe baked potato chips are dangerous.
See, the human brain is programmed to either avoid or feel guilty about eating things that are bad for us. It might happen later when you look at the numbers on a scale, but nobody eats an entire bag of greasy potato chips and thinks "man, this is sooooooooo good for me." Some people refer to this as a "health halo."
However, when you start saying "X is healthier than Y" instead of perhaps the better phrase "X is less terrible for you than Y" then the "health halo" starts to fade. People feel better about eating more of the second because, hey, it's healthy, right? Well, if you eat a double serving and the calorie count was only 15 less than the original, then no, no it's not healthy, and in fact you're doing worse.
So, I advise people to read the labels, compare products, and keep in mind that unless you're eating something that your doctor and health experts agree you should consume a lot of every day (fruits, vegetables, oxygen), odds are you need to keep track of how much you can safely put in your body.
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