Chips can often be seen on supermarket shelves, and so many people buy them as snacks without thinking about what the product consists of and whether it is safe for health to eat. Chips are considered to be exclusively fried potato slices, but is that really so?
Structure
What is a part of chips? If you pick up a mid-priced package in a supermarket, you can see the following composition: potatoes, vegetable oil, flavor and aroma enhancer, yeast, sugar, spices, stabilizer and color. Manufacturers can also add flavorings, additives, and powders, such as bacon or sour cream, to give the product a distinctive taste. However, along with the traditional types of chips, you can also find those that should not be called chips, but a potato-wheat snack, since they contain up to 40% of the corresponding vegetable, and they are mostly made from flour and starch, which are also called potato powder.
What are chips really made of?
What are chips made of? Most often, to reduce the cost of a product, its basis is flour and soy starch, which is made from genetically modified soy. These ingredients are mixed and made into thin plates, which are then fried in boiling vegetable oil. At the same time, it should be noted that chips can also be made from potatoes, but this does not mean that it is useful, since in order to avoid damage to tubers by pests, only hemodified potatoes are used, which is stored for a long time and has the correct even shape. Harmful products with GMOs have been proven; they cause infertility and cancer.
Chips harmful ingredients
Unfortunately, those people who believe that chips are not more harmful than ordinary potatoes will be very disappointed, because they have a lot of additives that are harmful to health.
What is a part of chips? In addition to flavors, stabilizers and colorings, it is monosodium glutamate, which makes chips seem incredibly tasty. The main goal of the supplement is to stimulate the receptors so that the taste of the food seems more saturated and bright. Therefore, if after the chips eat ordinary meat, which is not added a lot of spices, it will seem fresh and unsalted.
Monosodium glutamate is an artificially created supplement, and therefore it is considered harmful to the body, because it causes addiction in the brain, it is addictive (which is why consumers quickly get used to some kind of product and prefer it). If a person often consumes foods with monosodium glutamate, they may experience allergies, asthma, and digestive system diseases (gastritis, ulcers, and the like).
Vegetable oil or hydrogenated fat?
What chips are made of, we have already figured out. What do they fry them on? According to the technology for the preparation of chips, you need to fry the potato slices in vegetable oil. As you know, a good quality oil from sunflower seeds is very expensive, because most often it is replaced with cheap analogues - hydrogenated fat, which does not burn during frying and is stored for a long time, which means it is more beneficial for use in production.
Cheap fats do not contain those vitamins that are in vegetable oil, therefore they are absolutely useless, but at the same time they have a high calorie content, making chips a “cholesterol bomb”, which becomes the reason for blockage of blood vessels. If they are very common, diseases of the cardiovascular and digestive systems may appear. It is possible that cheap fats are one of the causes of cancer, because if you fry food for a long time on the same oil, it becomes a carcinogen, which is very toxic to the human body.
Chips "Leys"
This brand of chips is very popular among consumers and has an average cost. What is the composition of the Lays chips? According to the inscription on the package, they include potatoes, vegetable oil, flavoring, flavor enhancer, citric acid, glucose, dye, spices and salt. For cooking snacks, not every potato is used, but only a separate variety of it - the so-called crisp, which contains a lot of starch. It is cleaned, cut into pieces, and then immersed in a frying bath, in which slices are fried in vegetable oil. After that, various spices are added to the Leys chips to give them a special aroma and taste. Based on the above, the basis of the chips is potatoes, but still the flour is added to them, in addition, it should be noted that they contain a lot of starch, which is transformed into glucose by the body, therefore chips cannot be called a dietary product, considering that in 100 g of chips "Leys" - 510 kcal.
Chips: production
The production of chips takes place according to the following classical scheme. Since they are made from potatoes, this vegetable is first delivered to the plant, with individual varieties that are distinguished by a high content of starch. After it is thoroughly washed and peeled, removing all the defects of the tuber, the potatoes are sent to a special chopping drum, where the vegetable is finely chopped using an automatic mechanism with built-in knives with a sharp blade. After the potatoes are cut into thin slices, the thickness of which should not exceed more than two millimeters, the potatoes enter the frying bath, which is pre-filled with vegetable oil, and fried at 250 degrees.
The production of chips at each stage is carefully checked to ensure that the products meet all consumer qualities. After frying, various spices, flavors, salt, flavorings and color and flavor enhancers are added to the hot product. At some chips manufacturing plants, the process of making them is slightly different, since the basis for making the snack is not the potato itself, but a mixture of starches and flour. Chips are prepared from them, which are then fried with the addition of mixtures and other additives. How good the product will be for human health depends on the quality of the vegetable oil, since cheap fats at high temperatures turn into carcinogens that cause cancer.
Calorie Chips
Chips are mainly carbohydrates (potatoes, flour, starch) and fats (vegetable oil, refined and deodorized fats), so they are far from a diet snack. What is the calorie content of chips? So, in 100 g of the product contains about 517-538 kcal, depending on its type. At the same time, the chips contain 49.3 carbohydrates, 2, 2 proteins and 37.6 fats. A standard pack of chips is 28 grams, it contains 142 kcal, which replaces a bowl of soup with meat or fried potatoes and a couple of slices of sausage.
Taste variety of chips
To date, many different flavors of chips have been invented, because even the most demanding consumer has something to choose from all their variety. So, the most common types of product are chips with the taste of mushrooms, ketchup, cheese and bacon. In addition, such flavors of chips as Sour Cream and Greens, Green Onions and Red Caviar are very popular. New products that are especially suitable for beer are the taste of hunting sausages, chicken wings, lightly salted cucumbers, jellied meat and horseradish, smoked cheese and crabs. There are also original tastes, for example, chocolate and chili, lamb under mint, pepperoni, fruits (orange, kiwi), Greek salad, balsamic vinegar, wasabi and the like. It should be noted that, naturally, cheese or bacon are not added to potato chips; these are flavors and flavors that are identical to natural ones.
Are there any potatoes in modern chips?
Unfortunately, chips, the basis of which is potatoes, are very rare today, since most of this vegetable has long been replaced by potato powder, or, in simple words, flour (corn or wheat) and starch. What are the differences between the products and what harm is the cost reduction in the production of chips for the consumer? Of course, there is nothing wrong with potatoes fried in high-quality oil. Yes, it is a high- calorie product with a high glycemic index, but it contains vitamins and nutrients, therefore it will not bring harm to the body.
However, this cannot be said about starch and flour, from which "potato" chips are made in low-cost industries. It is their content in most products that is considered the main cause of obesity. With the accumulation of glucose in the liver, into which starch turns, a person begins to recover greatly, which negatively affects his health. It is difficult for the consumer to distinguish whether the potato is replaced with potato powder or not, since the product contains a lot of sodium glutamate and other flavors. If you give a person a try for the first time chips, he will immediately feel that they have a lot of salt and spices that completely interrupt the taste of other ingredients. Making this snack from potatoes is not very cost-effective, which means it is not profitable. Therefore, in reality, in modern chips, potatoes are quite difficult to meet.
Now you know the composition of the chips. Whether or not to use this product is up to you!