Oh, potato chips. I wish I could quit you, like I’ve stopped downloading freaky foreign internet porn and buying awful movies from the $5 DVD bin at Walmart with laughable titles like Mexican Werewolf In Texas and Hoochie Mama Drama. But you’re so difficult to shake, like a guy with vice grips for hands holding on to the roof of a speeding car while it goes around the Nürburgring in Germany.
I wish there was some kind of 12-step program to help me overcome my potato chip addiction because I have a weak soul that easily gives in to tater temptations. It’s so hard for my tongue to resist the equation: potato + hot oil = delicious. Once I pop, I can’t stop until half the bag is gone or until I get a sore stomach or until the bag is taken away from me using force.
It wouldn’t be so bad if potato chips had less fat. Although folks have tried to make low-fat potato chips using the synthetic oil, Olestra. However, for some reason people didn’t care for its possible anal leakage side effect.
A one ounce serving of Lays classic potato chips has 10 grams of fat, which is 16 percent of our daily value. So if I ate half a bag of Lays potato chips in one sitting, while watching a NCIS marathon on the USA Network, I would have consumed 60 grams of fat or 96 percent of my daily value. Oh, if only there was a way I could eat half a bag of potato chips without the guilt and the need to eat raw vegetables for the rest of the day to compensate for the potato chips.
Oh wait, it looks like Kettle Foods might have something with their Kettle Brand 40% Reduced Fat Sea Salt Potato Chips.
How did Kettle Brands make these chips have less fat? Don’t know and don’t care, unless it involves Olestra or a deal with the Devil. But it’s not the ingredients since it’s as simple of a list as their regular Sea Salt potato chips — potatoes, safflower and/or sunflower oil, and sea salt. It probably involves something that includes the word “proprietary” in its name.
As a fan of regular Kettle Brand Sea Salt potato chips, I’m quite familiar with its flavor. Heck, I’m such as fan that just thinking about them makes my mouth water and my hands shake. God, I need a potato chip fix right now. So does this reduced fat version taste just as good as the full fat version, which has 9 grams of fat per serving? Not quite. Does it taste good for a 40% reduced fat potato chip? Most definitely.
(Sidenote: The 40% is determined by comparing these chips with “regular potato chips” (i.e. Lays potato chips) and not their own regular sea salt potato chips.)
The chip’s potato flavor isn’t as robust as the regular version, but it does have the same delightful crunch. It seems Kettle Foods tries to make up for the slight loss of flavor due to the reduction in fat by including 45 milligrams more sodium per serving than the regular stuff, but I don’t think it’s saltier. However, the flavor difference is slight enough that I think if you emptied a bag into a bowl and left it out for your guests, no one would be any the wiser. After all, not everyone’s tongue and gut fat is as familiar with Kettle Brand Sea Salt potato chips as mine.
The Kettle Brand 40% Reduced Fat Sea Salt Potato Chips are pretty gosh darn good and I’ll probably end up replacing the regular stuff with it so that I can go on a potato chip bender with less guilt.
(Nutrition Facts – 1 ounce/about 13 chips – 130 calories, 50 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1 gram of polyunsaturated fat, 4.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 480 milligrams of potassium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 0 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)
Item: Kettle Brand 40% Reduced Fat Sea Salt Potato Chips
Price: $4.00 (on sale)
Size: 8 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Pretty damn good for 40% reduced fat potato chips. 40% less fat than “regular potato chips.” Less calories than Kettle Brand Sea Salt potato chips. Less guilty. No preservatives. Non-GMO ingredients. Gluten free. Potato + hot oil = delicious.
Cons: Flavor isn’t as robust as the regular stuff, but most won’t notice. My potato chip addiction. More sodium than the regular stuff. More expensive than “regular potato chips.” Some of the movies found in the $5 DVD bin at Walmart.