Reading Nutrition Labels: POTATO CHIPS

Today's blog is going to focus on a short quip about nutrition labels and how to read this for your best benefit:

1) Always check what the manufacturer considers one (1) serving size.

• In this chips bag, 18 chips = 1 serving size = 140 calories.

• There are a total of 8 servings per entire bag. This means, if I ate the entire bag, I ate 1120 calories in potato chips (140 x 8 = 1120).

• Believe it or not, eating this entire bag of chips would be so easy to do while I'm watching Netflix mindlessly.

2) Check what your sodium intake would be:

• If you only ate 18 chips, you took in about 125mg of sodium

• If you ate the entire bag, you just ate 1000 mg of sodium. This is about a 1/2 day's worth of sodium you should be eating.

3) Check Fat content

• NO Trans Fats (partially hydrogenated oil) - GOOD!

• Look at ingredients - use of vegetable oils such as Canola, Sunflower or Safflower are good sources of naturally occurring, non-hydrogenated oils and unsaturated fat.

• Limit sources of foods made with tropical oils (for example: Palm oil).

4) Check Carbohydrate content (important for diabetics)

• If you are carb counting, make sure you double check this area

• 18 chips = 16 grams of carbs. Ingredient says made of potatoes - which has good nutrients, however, deep frying them and processing them into chips destroys important vitamins and nutrients, and simply adds calories.

• For a typical person watching carbs, you should try to keep each meal to around 45 -60 grams of carbs, depending on your current treatment plan. Since there is a limited intake of carbs - it's best not to simply eat only potato chips: highly nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables and some whole grains should be in your day-to-day plan.

• Your carbohydrate need changes based on activity level. Someone who runs a marathon will require much, much more of this fast energy.

• Try to limit highly processed, refined carbohydrates and added sugars.

Summary:

Although this particular brand of potato chips chooses decent ingredients, potato chips should be eaten in moderation because they're processed, lack nutrition (many nutrients from the potato was destroyed during processing), are high in salt and fat (deep fried), and add calories!

That doesn't mean they don't taste good.

So eat in moderation - try to stick to the one serving size if you're eating this as a treat. Pair it with something nutritious, like an apple. Share the small bag or buy individual sized bags, and enjoy just once in a while.