The team at Beauty EQ love to indulge on a Friday afternoon. In fact, we skip lunch to eat cheese, crackers and potato chips - all washed down with a nice glass of Rosé. It's a team effort when it comes to foodie Friday, we all bring our favourite snack, a platters is created, and then we dig in. It's a great way to end a busy week. So in light of our new ritual, and with the lead up to Christmas (where we all tend to overindulge,) we thought over the next few weeks, we would give you the skinny on our guilty pleasure - the first designer potato chips.
Copper Kettle Chips Sea Salt, $3.55.
The good news is that they do use New Zealand potatoes cooked in sunflower oil. And boy, these chips have some crunch. The bad news (and we have trialled almost every flavour) they are very oily. And out of the half dozen packs we bought, the chips were crushed in the pack when they were opened.
Calorie Breakdown: per 100g: fat 31.9g. 46.0 carbs 7.4g% protein.
And just in case you have a few bags in the cupboard that you are yet to open, Bluebird Foods recalled a batch of Copper Kettle Sea Salt 150g bag with the best before the date of 24 May 2015 after small pieces of wood were discovered in some packs.
Eta Uppercut Deli Cut Sea Salt, $1.99.
I am not a fan of a thin chip. If you are going to eat chips, make sure they have some guts - but each to their own. Again, locally sourced ingredients are used, and the potato is cooked in sunflower oil, which means the trans fats should be eliminated. But looking at the nutrition information on the pack, there are some trans fats present, which potentially could be derivatives of palm oil.
Calorie Breakdown: per 100grams: Fat 34.2g. Carbs 47.8. Protein 5.1g.
However, in this 100g serving, you will also find 1g of saturated fat, 1g of trans fat, and 1g of polyunsaturated fat, which are the very fats we should all be avoiding.
Heartland Potato Chips Southern Salt, $2.35.
We only just discovered these a few months ago - and OMG they rock. Very close to another of my favourite chips, crinkle cut Smiths from over the ditch, but these are even better. I love that they are made by a Timaru family-based company (the daughter of the founder runs the business today) who have grown potatoes - for over 40 years - so they know their spuds. But for me, it's the moreish taste - my pick is Southern Salt (second to that is the chicken, which tastes like an old fashioned roasted chook sans the herbs and gravy). Super crunchy, that's because they're cooked in a blend of canola and sunflower oil (no palm oil derivatives in here folks). Needless to say, this is my pick without a doubt for foodie Friday....drum roll please Heartland all the way.
Calorie Breakdown; per 100grams: Fat 36.6 g. Carbs 56g. 6.2g protein and the best news, zero trans fats.
Take home: The fat, carb and protein percentage in all of these chips is much of a muchness. What it comes down to when snacking on guilty pleasures is the 80/20 rule (which is why we skip lunch). Aim for 80 percent of the time eating healthily, and 20 percent of the time enjoying a treat day and always buy the tastiest on offer and the best you can afford.