When you think of “healthy” snack foods, your mind likely rarely wanders over to the realm of chips and the like. Enter Good Health Natural Products based out of Greensboro, NC- an innovator in the natural and organic healthy snacks market that tapped into the notion of a truly healthy snack alternative back in 1992. Their healthy snacks include their original innovation: Veggie Stix (think crunchy, tasty puffed potato, tomato and spinach sticks), followed by their other block-buster hit: Olive Oil Potato Chips. And here’s the best part: you can actually pronounce every ingredient listed on the packets! It’s like buying chips in Spain or Italy where the main ingredients on many packets read as follows: potatoes, vegetable oil, sea salt. In this case, your choices range from sea salt, cracked pepper and sea salt, rosemary and sea salt, and garlic and sea salt. The oil that these crisp, golden slivers are fried in is olive oil of course, 100% olive oil to be exact (no hydrogenated or transfat anything!). Finally- a snack that you don’t feel guilty about indulging in and you don’t feel disgusting after consuming. Big fans include Ms. Oprah herself and the ever perky Rachel Ray.
Avocado Oil Potato Chips
Just like their other innovation- Avocado Chips, both kinds of chips are kettle cooked for a satisfying crunch, contain 0 trans fats, no MSG and 20% less fat than traditional chips! The folks at Good Health Natural Products say that the Avocado Chips offer snackers “good” monounsaturated fats given the oil they’re fried in (yep, 100% avocado oil- you guessed it!), and that you’re harnessing the anti-oxidants found in the fruit (you get a whallop of vitamin c with each bag too!). OK, so you can eat your good oils- and you can have them dusted in a few tasty flavours too including: Barcelona Barbecue, Sea Salt, Chilean Lime, and coming soon- Quattro Formaggio (or 4 cheeses). You could dip these, but with the fantastic flavour offerings, and the quality of ingredients used, why would you want to?
Polenta Corn Chips
Always on the look-out for other great ideas- the snack company has also come up with these tasty temptations: Solea Polenta Corn Chips (made of non-GMO corn) which contain 65% less fat than ordinary corn chips with 0g trans fats. This Mediterranean inspiration offers guacamole, Tuscan barbecue, Mediterranean lime and sea salt flavours in the most handy scalloped scoop shape that’s not only fun to eat, but perfect for dipping should you feel the need. These are all fried in expeller pressed high-oleic sunflower, safflower and/or olive oil. Even with seasonings, you can still identify every ingredient listed- it’s a refreshing change.
Apple Chips
If you’re more of a sweet-tooth, there are Apple Chips to be had (NO sulfites people!) in the original apple incarnation or the cinnamon-dusted variety. Made from whole Washington and Red Delicious apples, these all natural chips have 30% less fat than potato chips, contain no high-fructose corn syrup and are fried in non-hydrogenated sunflower oil. Perfect for when you feel like treating yourself to another kind of apple a day!
These chips have been spotted in the Greater Toronto Area at Fiesta Farms, health food stores and some bigger chain grocery stores.
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