There are literally dozens of varieties of potato chips and snack foods and they take up more than half of the aisle at my local supermarket - pretty hard to get past them without our children grabbing some and demanding we buy them. So which brands and which flavours are the safest to consume?

For this analysis we looked at NZ's biggest selling brand, Bluebird, ETA Upper Cuts, Copper Kettle, Pams, Heartland and Healtheries. The results were sometimes surprising and sometimes quite shocking. It is obvious a lot of these companies are trying to provide more healthier snacks but the level of sodium, flavour enhancers, fat, carbohydrates and other additives is still unacceptable in some of these snack foods.

Bluebird Ready Salted

A very simple ingredient's list of just potatoes, vegetable oil and salt which is good to see. With 651mg of salt in a 150g bag this isn't the worst although it is still more than 50% of the recommended daily intake for children up to the age of 8. Unfortunately, Bluebird chips are way too high in saturated fats, a whopping 23.8g in the 150g bag! This is probably because they use vegetable oil which is most likely palm oil which is cheaper to buy but very high in saturated fat. The proliferation of palm oil use worldwide is also responsible for the decimation of the jungles of Borneo, Sumatra and Malaysia home to many endangered species such as the orang-utan, tiger and Asian elephant to name but a few.

 ETA Uppercuts

These chips are the lowest we tested for salt content and the saturated fat content was the equal lowest with the Copper kettle brand, probably due to the fact they are cooked in sunflower oil. The salt content for a 150g bag is  585mg slightly lower than the Bluebird chips. Saturated fat content was massively lower than Bluebird at just 4.8g per 150g bag

Copper Kettle

Not surprisingly these chips are low in saturated fat as well having been cooked in sunflower oil - 4.8g per 150g bag, the same as the ETA Uppercuts. However, at 772mg the salt level is too high.

Pams Kettle Fried Chips
We didn't find a salt flavour so we chose Salt & Vinegar which is a little hard to compare fairly as they will use different ingredients for the flavours. However, Pams Potato Chips came in with 750mg of salt and a whopping 23g of saturated fat due to them being cooked in palm oil. We'd like to congratulate Pams though for labelling the palm oil instead of calling it vegetable oil as others do, thus giving consumers the choice. Unfortunately, the bad news doesn't stop there! Pams uses the three big flavour enhancers, 621 (monosodium glutamate), 627 (Disodium 5'-Guanylate) and 631 (Disodium 5'-Inosinate). These flavours are all extremely addictive, but combined they have been described by certain nutritionists as the "crystal meth" of flavour enhancers due to their addictiveness and the reactions they can cause. They are certainly not recommended for people with asthma or gout problems.

Heartland Potato Chips

A lovely story behind these potato chips with a south island Kiwi potato farmer buying up a dis-used potato chip factory and creating this Kiwi brand complete with logo of 100% Kiwi Owned - to the bottom of the bag. We purchased their Green Onion variety as their Southern Salt was not available at the supermarket at the time. There is an alarming amount of salt in this variety - 1275mg! But, in the interests of fairness, their Southern Salt variety contains a more reasonable 600mg in a 150g bag. Saturated fat levels are okay at just over 5g but in the Green Onion they have used flavour enhancers 621 and 635. 635 is similar to 627 and 631 mentioned above and is definitely not recommended for asthmatics or gout sufferers.



Healtheries Air Popped
Potato Bites

We were very surprised to see a health supplement company in the family snack business so had to include them in our analysis even though they are not essentially potato chips, they are "air popped potato bites" made from "real potatoes" according to the packaging. They also claim to be 92% fat free! They are much lighter than ordinary chips and the bags are only 80g by weight, so for complete fairness we have based all the data on 150g to be the same as the other products in the test. The saturated fat content is an amazingly low 1.05g! That's way, way less than all the potato chips we looked at. Even though Healtheries Air Popped Potato Bites proudly claim "no MSG" on the packaging there is a whopping 1185mg of salt per 150g, 2nd only to the other new kid on the block Heartland (above). Unfortunately, this product also contains the preservative Sodium Metabisulphite (E223) which is a bleaching agent and is potentially dangerous. Of even greater concern is the use of acidity regulators E270 (Lactic Acid) and E327 (Calcium Lactate). Lactic Acid prolongs shelf-life which acts like a disinfection agent to protect the food against yeasts and fungi. It is probably used as the product is made in Indonesia and fungi problems could be more prominent due to the heat and humidity. Calcium Lactate is used as a bulking agent but is also a bleaching agent with anti fungal and yeast properties. The really scary thing about these ingredients is they should not be consumed by children as their developing livers cannot easily metabolize the lactate. Not very good when the packaging also states they are "ideal for sharing with friends and family"! 
Healtheries, which is owned by Vitaco in Australia assure me that no GM ingredients are used in the manufacture.


Summary
We would never recommend eating any snack food on a regular basis, but as an occasional snack some potato chips are far better than others. Based on the brands we examined, the ETA Uppercuts came out best, with lower levels of saturated fat and sodium (salt) than the rest.

Chips cooked in Palm Oil should definitely be avoided, not just for the extremely high saturated fat levels but to slow down the growth of palm farms that are decimating the jungles of Indonesia and Malaysia. Bluebird and Pams come into this category.

There are still too many companies using MSG and now the even more intense 627, 631 and 635 flavour enhancers, created in the laboratory in the late 90's. High consumption of these addictive ingredients can lead to headaches and rashes and are potentially dangerous to asthmatics and gout sufferers. Heartland and Pams both use these enhancers. We are sure other flavoured chips will have them as well so we will be investigating further and writing to these companies to ask them to desist from using such dangerous ingredients.

Our biggest concern though is the Healtheries Air Popped Potato Bites as just the name and the packaging paints a far different picture of what you are consuming. This product is definitely not a healthy alternative with very high sodium and potentially dangerous to children acidity regulators. We will definitely be writing to their nutritionists once again and we will report their reaction.