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
yuck, formed potato chips. Gross. Health reasons aside, why would anyone want to eat a formed potato chip, baked or otherwise? It’s akin to eating a formed chicken nugget – how disgusting!
Yum, chicken nuggets.
Thanks for the info Sarah! I had no idea! I thought that as long as what I was frying was a healthy food and the fat I was using was good, then we were ok! So much for my chips and guac I am craving! Does the same apply for meats cooked at a high temp, such as a roast?
Thanks!
It’s starches that form the carcinogen at high temps. Although charbroiling meat (the black stuff) is carcinogenic too. But that can be avoided when you cook …
You really do need to watch the chips even if fried in a good oil. They are so very addictive and the acrylamide issue is really not taken seriously enough, I feel.
If you juice, making crackers from the pulp is a fantastic way to satisly your craving for something crunchy WITHOUT carcinogens. Just mix about a cup of pulp with a few tablespoons of arrowroot powder, a pastured egg, a little salt, and a little milk. Spread it out nice and thin, then put it in a very low-temp oven for a few hours, just until it’s crunchy (not hard). We do ours at about about 170 or lower on convection. These little crackers are great grain-free snacks, and wonderful vehicles for raw cheese and butter! 😀
None of these factory foods are worth eating. If what shows on the label is not bad enough, and it is, the Government allows them to leave many ingredients off the label entirely – like nanites and some flavor enhancers, and a host of chemicals that are used in small quantities, but were never part of the human food chain. And quite possibly some new horrors we have never heard of, as them keep inventing new artificial ingredients and adding them to processed foods.
Cook from scratch, with the most natural and unmodified ingredients you can find and afford. It does take time, but the more cooking you do, the easier and faster it gets.
Call me unconvinced. Granted, this is a blog, not a scientific paper, but a lot of was said without saying much of anything at all. For instance: if the potatoes were dried using a very high heat, which is likely, then acrylamide would be formed just like with the fried chips. “If” they’re dried with high heat tells us nothing about what is actually going on. “High heat” tells us nothing about how high the temperature needs to be to form any determined amount of acrylamide. And no mention is given of how much acrylamide is okay to have as opposed to how much is not okay. Again: there is a high likelihood that these ingredients are from genetically modified (GMO) sources. “A high likelihood” again tells us nothing about where these ingredients came from and “genetically modified” likewise tells us nothing because it is possible for somehting to be genetically modified in a way that is not any less harmful than natural modifications. And again: Given that GMO corn is linked to liver and kidney damage in rats. How is it linked? Almost anything can be linked to something. The amount of sleep the rats got could be a link. We have been told nothing about what actually happens and what causes it. Perhaps, for all we know, the “link” is between extremely high doses of GMO relative to their normal intake and that rats who had small amounts equal to a regular person’s consumption would have had no noticable increase in liver or kidney damage. And finally: In addition, sugar and corn sugar (aka, high fructose corn syrup) are stealthily included… Okay, I’ll grant sugar on there. But corn syrup shows up last. How much was used as the last and final ingredient in order to make any difference? How much has to be used to make a difference? How do we know anything like that was used? We are given no information, again, on whether any supposed harmful ingredient is actually harmful or not. So in conclusion, I have to say that while I like that you are exposing what is or might be going into these foods, because of the lack of any facts, you’ve done little more than write a conspiracy piece.
Acrylamide would be formed regardless. The higher the heat, the more acrylamide is formed. There is little to no chance the potatoes would be low temp dried. We are talking about a processed food here. Factory = Fast = Hot.
You go right ahead and eat those baked chips though. Sounds like you need more than common sense to convince you.
Did you even go to the source studies, by the way? It’s folks with this type of attitude that don’t tend to get it until they are really sick and by then, it’s many times too late because it’s really difficult to make the necessary dietary/habit changes when you are really ill as you are then detoxing from all the years eating the garbage food on top of it all.
Thanks for the reply, Sarah.
>> Sounds like you need more than common sense to convince you.<> Did you even go to the source studies, by the way?<<
If there was something significant in those sources, I assume you would have pointed it out. If you can't include any specific facts, then why should I go elsewhere? I'm not bashing you. Just constructive criticism. If you want to convince someone who doesn't already believe what you're saying, the best way to do it is to back it up. A little common sense for ya since that seems to be your modus operandi.
Somehow, that didn’t work. Let’s try it again.
Thanks for the reply, Sarah.
“Sounds like you need more than common sense to convince you.”
I’m not entirely certain wanting facts is the opposite of common sense. Can’t common sense and facts work together?
“Did you even go to the source studies, by the way?”
I figured there was no point. I mean, if there was something significant to say, I assume you would have pointed it out. If you can’t include any specific facts, then why should I go elsewhere? I’m not bashing you. Just constructive criticism. If you want to convince someone who doesn’t already believe what you’re saying, the best way to do it is to back it up. A little common sense for ya since that seems to be your modus operandi.
Ladies and Gents…………the CEO of Monsanto has spoken!
Okay, “The Dave”, just wondering if you have done your research? It appears to me that you are quite opinionated and not well read on these issues. Am I understanding you correctly? It is okay to be poisoned in millimeters vs inches? Just a suggestion, but you might want to dig a little deeper past the propaganda that you have been indoctrinated into for probably most of your life. It takes a real leap of faith to step outside the box and just LOOK at another opinion or view that doesn’t fit what you have been told. For me, that moment came when my Dad died from chemo complications. I am a major skeptic, but finally found the guts to find out for myself and NOT believe anything until I could verify that it is true. I also have 28 years as a medical professional; I have had first hand experience with mainstream medicine. I am not trying to be discourteous, but this blog is for those who are willing to look at things that most people don’t or won’t take time to see for themselves. “Condemnation without investigation is the heighth of ignorance.”~ Albert Einstein
Wow. You guys are getting just as feisty as me! Me liketh!
Well SAID, watchmom, and I love the quote!
“Okay, “The Dave”, just wondering if you have done your research?”
I’m not the one who wrote the article.
“It appears to me that you are quite opinionated and not well read on these issues.”
If opinionated means asking for evidence before believing something, sure.
“It is okay to be poisoned in millimeters vs inches?”
I go out every month or two and have a glass of poison called alcohol. I breathe a bit of poison every day in the air above my city. I’m not going to freak out about a glass of alcohol or having to breathe in my city.
“Just a suggestion, but you might want to dig a little deeper past the propaganda that you have been indoctrinated into for probably most of your life.”
Let’s take for a moment that I have been indoctrinated. I come to this blog post and read something that is, hopefully, here to help me out. And I write what I wrote above. What do you think the issue is? Maybe this post wasn’t deep enough for someone who’s indoctrinated. Nah. It couldn’t be that. It must be my fault entirely. Fail on me for not knowing the facts that I wasn’t given.
“this blog is for those who are willing to look at things that most people don’t or won’t take time to see for themselves”
Well, then maybe it’s failing to do much more than speak to the crowd. Sorry. I’m also not being discourteous. Just saying how it is. If I’m ignorant after this reading this blog post, whose fault is that?
The Dave….Sounds like you are interested in learning more. This is a bit of a time commitment, but if you watch it, I guarantee that you will in the least, be better informed about the sugar/liver connection. Youtube: Sugar: The bitter Truth. It is a talk given by a physician at UCSF. Pass it on.
In health,
Brie
Sorry, but you are being discourteous. All you had to do was ask where that information is located. Sarah has always been so helpful to anyone who wants to read the data and find out for themselves. It just didn’t seem like that was your motive. If you are ignorant after this, it is because you neither looked nor asked. Don’t wait; find out for yourself. It is crucial. (Not the potato chips; all the info that has been withheld from the mainstream.)
Wow, somebody didn’t eat their pastured eggs with butter this morning! Seriously, go drink a nice cup of mint tea, maybe with a little raw honey and coconut oil in it. It’ll make you feel MUCH better, I promise! Or better yet, just actually eat those buttered eggs, make up for missing out this morning.
wow
Since these products cause diahrea in most people I would say something is wrong?
Maybe you’re confusing the baked chips w/ those that have the fake fat in them??
What is considered high heat? I put potatoes in the oven with tallow and bake them to make fries. Would this still cause them to become carcinogenic?
You’re still going to get some acrylamide as acrylamide forms even when bread is baked. But it won’t be nearly as much as when you fry them. This is a good reason to limit cooked starches – period. BUT, boiling potatoes does not form any acrylamides. So mashed potatoes (with lots of butter of course ) are a great alternative. Also, sourdough bread is cooked at much lower temps than yeasted bread so this is another reason to eat bread prepared in this traditional manner as it would have far less acrylamide.
Refined carbs from the store even if organic are LOADED with acrylamide by the way.
Reason #453,967,004 to eat lovely, homemade mashed potatos with tons of butter and cream and garlic and salt and lemon zest (YUM!), instead of nasty, processed junk. This is why I’m so glad my family has never eaten any of this type of junk before we totally went over to a WAPF way of eating. Mommy, if you’re reading this, THANK you. As in, a whole bunch!
You’re lying to yourself if you think those mashed potatoes are any healthier than potato chips.
Natural and home cooked does not equal healthy.
Sarah! You’re on FIRE this week!
Keep up the great work. Love your blogs.
~Kenny
Thanks Kenny 🙂 Some weeks are more smokin’ hot than others!
I use to buy Kettlebrand’s baked chips thinking they would be a healthier snack, but I soon realized they were no better than any other kind of chips. They still contained vegetable oils cooked at high heat and GMO-derived ingredients. Once again, Big Food has found another way to trick the masses into consuming fraudulently “healthy” products.
I don’t even like to buy potato chips fried in lard due to the acrylamide problem although I will eat them on occasion. Better to limit fried foods altogether and eat them rarely. I do make healthy french fries at home using tallow (video on this in the free video library for this blog), but this is a rare treat due to the acrylamide problem which simply can’t be avoided when you fry food.
Sarah, do you know at what temperature the acrylamide issue starts? I have an oven fried potato recipe that we love and I’d love to know if we need to “ditch” it or maybe cook at a lower temp. Thanks!
At what point does the acrylamide form? I know all the science background on this but have never heard it applied to potato chips.
Kelli – Kettle brand claims to be GMO free. Acrylamide containing, yep, but maybe less bad than some others? One would hope that no one would make these the mainstay of their diet, although I appreciate this post, Sarah, as I know people who buy these things for themselves and their kids thinking they are healthy.
Baked Chips as Bad or Worse Than Fried – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/T8OptEsI
New class action lawsuit filed against Frito-Lay for labeling its trash snacks “all natural” when they contain genetically modified ingredients:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034576_Frito-Lay_GMO_class_action_lawsuit.html