Examination of commercial potato chips to determine if baked versions are truly healthier than fried as advertised.
Most consumers associate baking to be a healthier manner of preparation of food than frying.
This would certainly be true for home cooking.
A baked potato, for example, would be a more nourishing choice than a fried potato given that starch subjected to high heat cooking forms acrylamide, a potent carcinogen.
Acrylamide forms even if a healthy cooking oil suitable for high heat cooking is used, like ghee, coconut oil, or pastured tallow.
What about processed foods like baked chips?
Does the same truism that baked is healthier than fried hold up to scrutiny or is it just marketing bling?
Let’s take a look at the labels for a popular brand of baked and fried potato chips.
Fried Potato Chips
Below is the label for a bag of Lay’s Classic Potato Chips.
The ingredients for the fried chips shown in the picture are very simple: potatoes, oil, and salt.
The oils used are very unhealthy as you can’t fry in sunflower, corn, or canola oil without completely denaturing them (some bags list soybean oil as well).
The fact that the oils aren’t hydrogenated does not mean they are healthier.
These vegetable oils are rancid from being highly processed at high temperatures. In addition, frying the potatoes ensures exposure to the carcinogen acrylamide.
So, are the fried chips healthy? Of course not.
Baked Potato Chips
Now let’s look at the ingredients label for the same brand’s version of baked potato chips.
The potatoes used are dried so they aren’t even fresh potatoes!
No information on how the potatoes were dried is provided.
If the potatoes were dried using a very high heat, which is likely, then acrylamide would be formed just like with the fried chips as the lower temperature baking occurs after the drying process!
Tricky, tricky, eh?
In addition, corn starch, corn oil, and soy lecithin are used. Since they are not organic, there is a high likelihood that these ingredients are all from genetically modified (GMO) sources.
Given that GMO corn is linked to liver and kidney damage in rats, these are not the innocuous ingredients food manufacturers would have you believe. (1)
In addition, sugar (from GMO beets) and corn sugar (aka, high fructose corn syrup) is stealthily included.
This means that while you are getting less of the unhealthy vegetable oils in the baked chips, you are getting ingredients that are arguably just as bad in return!
Note: Some bags list dextrose instead of corn sugar, but both are from GMO corn. Six of one and a half dozen of the other.
The Truth about Baked Chips vs Fried
Studies have shown that roughly half the tested samples of commercial high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are contaminated with mercury. (2)
Even if not laced with heavy metals, many scientists note that HFCS can dramatically increase the risk of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and liver damage.
So it would seem that the baked chips are no better than the fried chips after all!
Buying the baked chips is 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 as the baked chips are more highly processed than the fried chips.
They also contain more genetically modified ingredients and possibly a bit of neurotoxic mercury residue to boot.
Skip the Baked Chips Upsell
Some well-known restaurant chains like Subway try to make a big deal out of the fact that they offer baked chips.
Now you know that this choice is no better and likely even worse than the fried chips alternative.
By the way, tests show that Subway chicken is less than 50% real meat.
What’s more, the Subway tuna sandwiches don’t test for any fish DNA either.
This chain isn’t exactly on the up and up about their food including the baked chips upselling strategy.
How to Enjoy Truly Healthy Chips!
Just because the baked chips at the store are a scam doesn’t mean that there are no healthy chips to be found!
Here are a few recipes I use in my home so our family can enjoy chips for salads, sandwiches, lunch boxes, and snacks.
(1) Monsanto’s Corn Linked to Organ Failure
(2) Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup
Hi Sarah – I have a quick question if you have time. On Dr. Mercola’s website not too long ago I read some frustrating info. It had to do with the baking process of potatoes and that is actually produces something called Acrylamide; cancer causing of course. I make my french fries with coconut oil and I either pan fry them or bake them; I know you recommend tallow and hopefully will get my hands on some soon. I’m not terribly concerned or worried, mostly curious. I do know that cooking food (potatoes specifically) changes its molecular structure and makes the starch much more digestible. The rest though, I think it out of my league! (here is the link to the Mercola post if you would like Thanks again, love the site and all the knowledge you impart
Sorry! I cannot delete my comment. I looked back up and this has been discussed and answered! hahah, my fault for jumping the gun instead of reading.
I know I don’t sound smart when I ask the question: are we talking about all starchy veggies? Can I deep fry sweet potatoes w/o issue? Or other veggies like summer squash? Thanks!
Baked Chips as Bad or Worse Than Fried – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/E8AVEHBq
Sarah,
Would cubing potatoes and cooking them on a medium heat in lard and/or butter on the stove be as probematic as frying, do you think? My kids LOVE our farmer’s market potatoes cooked this way. What do you think?
Sure that’s fine Bonny. I would do this on as low a temperature as you can and don’t make it a daily thing 🙂
Hi Sarah! I can’t avoid eating potato chips especially when I’m watching TV or movies. And like many others, I used to think that baked potato chips are better than fried chips. Instead, I’m wrong. Thank you for the information. I will no longer eat factory done potato chips.
Febe, I can relate. Potato chips are so incredibly addictive. Best to not buy them and don’t have them in your house.
Baked Chips as Bad or Worse Than Fried – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/DEaom8A0
Back in the day when I used to buy potato chips, I would buy baked chips/tostitos and pat myself on the back for picking the healthier option before proceeding to polish off the bag. ha… thank gosh those days of denial and ignorance are over! Great read! 🙂 Thanks for the post!
Regarding “The Dave”,
Sounds like he works for the industry. I don’t know which one, GMO growers of America? lol Definitely not a scientist, unless he’s a paid scientist on Monsanto’s payroll. There really are people who are paid to troll the internet looking for information that may wake others up to what is really going on. It is their job to write this type of non-science based response and try to make it sound like they are being objective. Fail. I wonder how much GMO corn or soy “the dave” would feed to his children? Or maybe he could find a nice bpa lined can of acrylamide potato flavored soy chips cooked in gmo corn oil and flavored with “natural” corn SUGAR”. Have a nice dinner “the dave”. 😉
Love your blog Sarah, been here a while but I don’t usually post. Couldn’t resist this time.
btw try not to be to hard on CS. He was talking about things that the same type of people as “The Dave” didn’t like before he was ruined.
I was thinking the same thing Connie!
“Sounds like he works for the industry. . . . Definitely not a scientist, unless he’s a paid scientist on Monsanto’s payroll. There really are people who are paid to troll the internet looking for information that may wake others up to what is really going on. It is their job to write this type of non-science based response and try to make it sound like they are being objective.”
You mean, I could’ve been paid to write what I did? Missed the boat on that one. Seriously though, I think this is the first time I’ve asked someone for evidence of what they claimed and was called unscientific. Maybe I should just believe whatever anybody writes on a blog post.
“I wonder how much GMO corn or soy “the dave” would feed to his children?”
However much they can eat and doesn’t have a significant effect on their life. However much that is, however, this blog post doesn’t inform me about.
“Have a nice dinner “the dave”.”
Instead of wishing me a nice dinner, how about giving me some facts to help make my dinner better? Or is that too unscientific?
I think we’re being a little bit hard on someone who is just asking for facts to back up statements. I eat the way Sarah suggests, but I can sympathize with someone wanting actual facts, because if you know anything about research, you know that “link” does not at all mean “causation,” which I think is what he was trying to point out, because that is a huge issue when conducting scientific studies. I’m a regular reader of this blog and enjoy most of the posts, and I follow a WAPF lifestyle, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with someone expecting a bit of hard evidence every once in a while. For me, though, just eating this way and feeling how much better my body feels because of it and knowing how badly I feel when I eat processed foods is enough for me. But that doesn’t mean that’s the case with everybody!
Kelsey, you may have a point about being too hard on “The Dave”. When you read his comment and the way that he implies that Sarah is just pushing a “conspiracy theory”, well…that tips me off to motive. I am more than willing to listen to someone who really wants to know what is true; what gets my dander up is rudeness just because he doesn’t have all the information that he needs to make an informed decision. When you want to know something, ASK POLITELY WHERE THE INFORMATION IS LOCATED. Don’t jump to conclusions before you have that information. “The Dave” spoke in a condescending manner as well as making derogatory statements…not a good way to get informed. Nevertheless, thanks for reminding us to be polite also.
i think the biggest annoyance is if you’re trying to be an informed consumer, (of ANY product including your food) you can’t expect the facts to be laid out in front of you. you have to be like a detective, and you have to come to the final conclusions yourself. there are so many articles and scientific papers out there that completely contradict each other. how in the world are we to know exactly what is the “truth”? to be completely honest, you won’t!
you just have to do the best you can at gathering as much information as possible and go with your gut. i know that sounds awful, but even after all the research i’ve done in the past 5 years reading book after book and paper after paper, talking to numerous practitioners in both health and nutrition, there comes the point where you must take everything that you’ve learned and make an educated decision on what you think is the best step/steps to take. common sense and intuition go hand in hand.
bottom line, this is a blog. not a scientific research community. Sarah speaks her mind, provides links to where she got her information and you take what you want out of it. do i religiously follow her every word because i deem her the goddess of nutrition? absolutely not. however i do find her blog a very valuable archive of useful information, and i apply her wisdom where i see fit.
“The Dave” i applaud you for speaking your mind as Sarah did, just realize you’re not ever going to get those shiny, tangible facts that you can keep stored away in your pocket for a rainy day. in our current world of nutrition, everything keeps changing. do the best you can and try to eat as wholesome as possible. which means minus anything in a box! 😉
i think my wife and i will change our family eating habits because dave doesnt have enough scientific data to let him know that potato chips are bad for you.. and something about rats fed GM corn having insomnia or something… yes.. that is the only possible solution..
-jason and lisa-
the dave..
yea…….
-jason and lisa-
Can you do a post like this about tortilla chips? I buy them occasionally, but knowing more would make me buy them less:)