Stiftung Warentest found out that most vegetable crisps contain too much fat, sugar, salt, and sometimes even harmful substances such as acrylamide. We have frightening results at a glance.
Vegetable chips as an alternative to potato chips?
Potato chips are popular for a reason: they’re crispy and flavorful and once you start, it’s hard to stop. Unfortunately, they are considered one of the unhealthiest snacks of all.
For some time now, supermarkets have been offering vegetable chips made from beetroot, carrots, or sweet potatoes as a healthy alternative. Stiftung Warentest tested 15 chips from different brands and came to the conclusion: Unfortunately, they are no healthier than potato chips. Only three products get good marks.
Critical substances spoil the snacking fun
The vegetable content in fried vegetable chips is often between 60 and 70 percent, which sounds good at first. However, the fat content is 28 to 37 percent and is, therefore, higher than in conventional potato chips. With 100 grams of vegetable chips, you eat almost 30 to 40 grams of fat.
In addition, vegetable chips have a high salt content and lots of natural sugar. The acrylamide and nitrate content was also criticized. The value was particularly high for vegetable chip mixes with sweet potatoes, as well as for carrots and lentils. In animal experiments, both substances were carcinogenic and mutagenic.
Vegetable chips are also healthy
If you want to avoid all the harmful ingredients found in vegetable chips, but are still a big fan of the crunchy snack, we have the solution: make your own vegetable chips. This gives you control of what’s in your snack and you can get really creative. We have tried a few recipes for homemade vegetable chips and think that this healthy variant is really impressive.
