What’s in your favourite snack?

What is your favourite snack? What snack makes your taste buds go crazy? What makes them so tasty? Why do you have to finish the pack? Are they any good for you? Let’s have a look at what’s in your favourite snack.

My favourite snack is Ready Salted Potato Chips. Also known as Mini Chips, they are one of the most moorish treats ever? You can’t open a pack and not finish it straightaway. But why?

How long will it take you to demolish this bowl of mini chips?

Why do we love our snacks so much?

I have a diploma in Nutrition so I guess I’m qualified to give you the lowdown on my favourite snack. Mind over Money Matters investigates why we (the royal we) love them.

Ready Salted Potato Chips are as it says on the pack:-

• Crunchy & salty
• A classic snack, packed with flavour and crunch
• No artificial flavours or colours
• Suitable for vegetarians
• Tasty tasty very very tasty. They’re very tasty (I’ve added this bit)

Sounds great yes? Let’s look at the nutritional values.

The ingredients are few. Potato, Sunflower Oil & Salt. That’s it. One pack is 150g and it’s easy to eat the whole pack in one go. So I challenge you not to not finish the whole pack in one go.

Let’s have a look at the nutritional values. On the front of the pack these traffic lights are printed.

So what is the traffic lights system?

What you see on the front of the pack is the traffic lights labelling system. Although it is not mandatory to include this information on packaging yet, most major supermarkets and many food manufacturers provide this. This information will be written per 100g/100ml, per portion or both providing an easy way to provide the nutritional value of foods. It’s called the traffic lights system because of the colours for the labelling

So stop when you see a red light as this means the product is high in fat, saturated fat, salt or sugar. Remember green for go. Red for no.

So what’s on the back of the pack?

On the back of the pack is the full nutritional information. Again this is standard to show per 100g and portion size. The idea is you can easily compare different foods.

Now you need to use your mental maths. The pack size is 150g and you can easily demolish it in one go. Their portion size is 25g (which is not a lot), but the real nutritional value of eating a whole pack is:

• energy 796kcal
• fat 46.2g
• of which saturates 4.35g
• salt 1.35g

So what makes crisps so irresistible?

Three words. Salt. Fat. Marketing.

Salt

Basically salt makes everything taste better. We need it to survive but our body can’t store much salt so we need to consume it regularly. Our body craves salt. So the salt in a bag of mini chips is too much to have in one go but……..I challenge you to not eat the whole bag in one go. The RDA (recommended daily amount) of salt is 6g per day for adults. Around 3/4 of the salt we eat has already been added to our food before we buy it.

Fat

Fat also makes everything taste better. Imagine a jacket potato without butter. Or no cheese. Not very tasty no? Fat is also a source of essential fatty acids that the body cannot make itself. The RDA for saturated fat is 30g for men and 20g for women. So 4.35g in a bag of mini chips is a hefty 15% of your RDA.

Marketing

Let’s have a look at why we are drawn to this packet of mini chips, the same tricks are used for most foods. The packaging is inviting.

• Nice big red bag.
• A very appealing picture of the potato chips.
• No artificial flavours or colours
• A big green V for vegetarian. Healthy huh?
• 3 of the 4 traffic lights are orange or green so they must be healthy.
• They are cheap (88p)

Now if the traffic lights used the standard measure of 100g then 3 out of 4 would be red. Would you still buy them if you saw this on the front of the pack? Clever marketing or misleading. Maybe swerve that one.

Tasty

The excessive salt and fat (oil) make them moorish. A bag is 150g. Normally takes me around 20 minutes to demolish. The greasy and salty fingers are licked clean. Pack thrown away. No evidence. Then the guilt sets in. Why didn’t I just pour some out into a small bowl and leave the rest for tomorrow? Why didn’t I offer them round? (I know the answer to this).

So there you have it. My take on Ready Salted Potato Chips. Or as I prefer to call them, Mini Chips.

Have a look at the pack of your favourite snack. Are you shocked? How do they stack up against my Mini Chips?

Tracy lost 2 stone when she ditched slimming world and found her own way of losing weight. Her snack of choice is mini cheddars – an individual packet, she still enjoys the mini chips, but fills a small bowl.

And one or two slices of homemade banana cake It’s important to enjoy our treats and food, life needs to have these #SmallJoys.

Let me know what you think. What snacks do you start and have to finish? Even though you know you should stop. What floats your boat in the snacking world?

Spend Smarter, Travel Smarter and Visit Cyprus Smarter.

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