This is actually how much ham is in 'ham flavor' chips

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There is no snack more international than a handful of chips; simple and tasty. In Spain, of course, we do not get rid of this hobby that is so delicious and, at the same time, so dangerous to maintain a healthy body weight. Harvard University leaves us with a sad fact about our favorite food: French fries are the food most related to obesity, even more so than pastries and cookies.

For this reason, we should save the fries for special occasions. However, it is not easy because they are everywhere as a side dish or appetizer and, in addition, they are very cheap. In any supermarket or grocery store, we can find a bag full of potatoes —and air— for just over one euro. Although they are vegetables, French fries do not count as a piece of vegetables, although you probably already suspected that.

Actually, it doesn't matter how we cook potatoes: Harvard University does not consider them to be a vegetable, in terms of their nutrients. While vegetables do not pose a problem for blood sugar and are full of minerals and vitamins, potatoes tend to raise our glucose and do not contain too many micronutrients, which also tend to disappear with cooking.

the less the better

However, potatoes do not have to disappear from our diet if we eat them cooked, roasted or steamed and being aware that they are similar to some sources of carbohydrates such as bread. A potato has 88 kilocalories per 100 grams, but the problem is that this amount of energy is multiplied when we consume fried and bagged potatoes: the latter can represent more than 500 kilocalories in the same amount.

As if that were not enough, French fries can now be found in supermarkets with unconventional flavours: peasant, vinaigrette or even fried egg flavoured. In addition to the typical problems associated with potato chips, they are made with a large number of ingredients and many of them are not healthy. That is, they are ultra-processed products.

How are these potatoes made? As Francisco Tinahones, president of the Española for the Study of Obesity (Seedo), recounted, it is common to find flavoring additives, monosodium glutamate, excess sugars and salts and, in a low percentage, the food whose flavor they want to emulate. For example, peasant potatoes do contain onion, paprika, tomato, garlic and parsley; but in a low proportion and in powder form.

ham flavor

However, there is no case more striking than the one in which ham-flavored potatoes and even any snack with this claim are the protagonists. These products contain nothing that has come from a pig and are, in fact, suitable for vegetarians. That is to say, they do not have ham, but rather a "ham aroma" that is made with the most unexpected ingredients because none of them is animal meat.

Salt, lactose, monosodium glutamate, disodium inosinate and guanylate, hydrolyzed soy protein, preparations and flavoring substances, powdered cheese and smoke aroma are the ingredients that make up this ham trompe l'oeil. "The flavor of ham is obtained from what has been called flavorings. Those used in food are regulated and are not harmful, but any Nutrition expert advises against them," explains Tinahones in this EL ESPAÑOL article.

If we eat a bag of chips -something that, unfortunately, is not unreasonable-, we will be consuming more than 900 kilocalories: that is, just over 40% of the calories we need in a day. "Crisps have little satiating effect because they have a small amount of fiber. Also, when eaten as a snack, the consumer does not focus on what they eat. The combination of these two circumstances leads to compulsive eating."

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