By Andrea Jackson
Our world today is more health and wellness driven than ever before. This movement has inspired people to pursue more nutritious diets, but has also allowed for companies to take advantage of these conscious customers by falsely advertising their products as “healthy”.
One sure-fire way to come across as healthy is to throw the word “veggie” into your product. This evil genius marketing ploy instantly appeals to someone at a grocery store looking for a quick and nutritious snack (even if this snack is as far from a carrot as a donut).
My hope is that you’ll never fall victim to this wickedness again!
So what does healthy even mean?
This is the million dollar question. And there is no one right answer. But generally speaking, a healthy food is a nutritious one. Nutrients include protein, carbohydrates, fats, water, vitamins, and minerals; and maintaining a balance of these can help fuel our bodies and keep us “healthy”.
Vegetables are closely correlated with health because they are packed with these beneficial nutrients and minerals while containing relatively little calories.
On the other hand, many highly processed foods hold almost no nutritional value, yield high numbers of calories, and contain harmful additives and preservatives that make them addictive.
These are what we could classify as “unhealthy”.
Many brands market their heavily processed, nutrient lacking, grain filled, chips as “veggie” when the only thing connecting them to vegetables is the name!
When taking a deeper dive into the ingredients of these sneaky snacks, we will find that this name is extremely misleading.
What are veggie chips made of then?
Not the vegetables you want, as it turns out.
These chips are mainly made of potato starch, potato flour and canola oil.
If you want to compare that to regular potato chips, they’re made out of just potatoes and vegetable oil. Basically, veggie chips are potato chips with less fat.
So where does “veggie” come from then!?
Seasoning.
These brands sprinkle some vegetable powder on top of their highly processed concoctions.
The powder adds a pop of color and lets them throw that magical word into their title.
But if there's veggie powder on the chips, doesn't that make them healthy?
No!!!!!
This vegetable powder holds such trace amounts of real produce that it adds almost no nutritional value. Most of these chips contain almost no fiber or protein.
It's the equivalent of calling a hot dog a “veggie dog” just because you put ketchup on it (and then labeling it as healthy).
Even a perceived “unhealthy” potato chip usually has at least some fiber and protein - veggie chips are almost completely void of nutrients !!
Yet most people would understandably assume that veggie chips are “healthier”.
But I’m not here to tell you to ditch veggie chips and take up potato chips or hot dogs.
I'm telling you to stick to your values and take up real veggie chips.
Pulp Pantry is putting an end to the nonsense and finally giving veggie chips the integrity they deserve. Our chips are packed with real veggies and real macronutrients, like fiber, as our chips are made from leftover vegetable pulp after cold juice pressing!
No misleading, no false advertising, no taking advantage of a conscious customer base.
One serving of our food-waste-fighting, planet-friendly, nutrient-packed, delicious, cravable blend provides a happy consumer with 5 grams of fiber and 2 grams of protein! The fiber helps to balance our snack to provide real lasting “fullness” and satisfaction - not empty calories.
We want to take back the name of veggie chips and help fuel the world with a snack that keeps people happy and healthy both inside and out.
Sources:
https://food.unl.edu/NEP/NEP%20Documents/Vegetable%20group.pdf
https://health.gov/myhealthfinder/topics/health-conditions/diabetes/eat-healthy
https://www.eatingwell.com/article/7889031/are-veggie-straws-and-chips-healthier-than-potato-chips/
https://www.sensibleportions.com/products/classic-veggie-straws-with-sea-salt/
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/7-worst-snacks-dietitian-never-eat/
