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Try Out These Lighter, Tastier, and Gluten-Free Chips: Healthier Chip Reviews

July 27, 2012   13 Comments

Snack Girl is always looking for a way to have that potato chip CRUNCH without the calories.

Healthy Chips

Because I am Snack Girl, I get boxes of chips to review for the website. Fortunately, I like tasting chips (perhaps a little too much :)

My criteria for a good chip are as follows:

  • Taste - needs to be delicious
  • 20 chips for 100 or so calories - or I will just stick with potato chips

Potato chips, such as my favorite Kettle Krinkle Cut, are just NINE chips for 100 calories.

While a processed chip is never going to be super healthy, you can use them as a healthy food delivery mechanism. Salsa, anyone?

The Plentils are a gluten-free chip made with lentil powder and potato starch. This means you get a little protein with your chip. The nutrition facts for the “Light Sea Salt” are:

For 30 chips = 130 calories, 6 g fat, 17 g carbohydrates, 0 g sugar, 3 g protein, 1 g fiber, 420 mg sodium, 4 Points+

Thirty is a really big portion size for these chips! My family gobbled these down. They come in light sea salt, margherita pizza, garlic & parmesan, and dill & sour cream.

You can buy them on the Plentils website or on Amazon (below) for $3-$4 for a 4 ounce bag.

These Poptillas are also gluten-free and are like Popchips - except better. These are lighter, fluffier tortilla chips and they go great with salsa.

For 20 chips = 120 calories, 5 g fat, 17 g carbohydrates, 0 g sugar, 2 g protein, 2 g fiber, 210 mg sodium, 3 Points+

You can buy them on the Poptillas website for $6.95 for 4 bags of 4 ounces each.

Do you have a favorite lighter chip?

These products were received for review consideration. No other compensation was provided.

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13 Comments:

we really like Veggie Straws by Sensible Portions. You get about 38 straws for 3p+ and they are quite tasty.

I'm like you I love a good chip thats low calorie and tastes good! I have to try the Plentils. Lately I have been loving Beanfield Rice and Bean Chips. There 140 calories but all natural and full of fiber! I never thought I would like bean chips, but I love them!! Have a great weekend!

I have replaced chips (for the most part) with Sensible Foods Dried Corn Kernels. They have a little salt added and are soooo good (if you like corn). I buy them by the case and practically inhale them. They can be ordered from Amazon.com.

"...they are made entirely of cheese with spices or seeds added to them. I LOVE these, especially the ones with flax seed added for extra crunch. With a glass of white wine, these are just heaven. Salty, crunchy, spicy......yum!"

You've sold me on that one! :)

Hate to say it, but you can make your own cheese crisps in the microwave quick and easy.

1) Grab cheese. Cheddar makes a really good crisp.

2) Either shred it or slice it very thinly. Both work fine.

3) Place a piece of parchment paper on a paper plate (it's gonna get hot, I prefer not to risk my good plates and the slope of a paper plate is helpful).

4) arrange your slices or shreds around the parchment paper, spaced apart to give them room to spread.

5) put it all in the microwave. Start with 30 seconds and WATCH CAREFULLY. You are looking for bubbling and sizzling, and golden brown and delicious without getting too brown. You will have to experiment a bit with your time and amount of cheese to get perfect crisps.

6) before it burns, remove from the microwave and pour off the grease (it's got good flavor, you could use it for cooking). Dab with a paper towel to soak a little more grease up.

7) break into pieces and eat greedily.

I haven't tried it with spices, but I have tried with various cheeses. What you want is *not* a gooey melting cheese, you want a hard cheese. You also want real cheese, not processed cheese food.

Because you are starting with slices or shreds, you can make your portion size the way you want it. Of course it's tough to come up with a calorie count, but you can start with the calories on the cheese itself and know you're not going to get them all because you're pouring off the grease at the end.

Tasty and crispy. My kids love them. We call them 'cheese crunchies' in our house.

shris

I would guess, that even if potato starch is 2nd ingredient behind lentil powder, that there's still a lot of potato starch in it. Potato starch = potato chip.

I'm inspired to make my own chips now though. Fresh milled popcorn into corn tortillas, cut into triangles, and bake. A good source of fiber and antioxidants.

I love the sound of shris' cheese crisps! I find challenging myself to break with processed food esp. as a snack can be very rewarding. Getting to know what I really enjoy and what leaves me feeling great is one outcome. My feel-good snack at the moment is anything by 'Marys Gone Crackers' with an oz of goat cheese and apple-sweetened cranberries sprinkled on top. I found a very inspiring approach to eating this morning, http://polarisinstitute.com/beta/2012/05/25/how-to-know-wha… I aspire to this level of thoughtful conscientious eating! Luckily I've never craved traditional chips:)!

Was wondering if you had any no bake ideas for snacks? Thank you

I love all of the veggie straws, chips, etc by Sensible Portions. You get a ton of chips for the calories and you definitely get your salty and crunchy fix too!

Does anyone have a good recipe to make these chips?

The above nutrition facts on the chips seem to indicate high fat. Do you have a breakdown on unsat vs sat fat content on the chips?

thanks

I love pop chips and a lot of other healthy chips, but my new favorite are the Kettle Brand bakes chips. They are the crispiest baked chip I have ever had and only ring in at 3 pts plus per 20 chip serving. They're delicious and the closest thing to a fried chip without the calories!

I am looking forward to trying these out! Gluten free is really coming along and it couldn't happen at a better time! Great information.

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