The new health craze, chips as vegetables, sounds like it should make sense, but does it? I specifically looked at the Terra Chip brand, which make their chips in New York.

One big hit is the sweet potato chip. The cousin of the potato, it made me wonder whether or not it actually was better for you or less in calories. I went on the Terra Chips website, and found out that for 160 calories you can have 17 chips! That is all great and good, until you find out that for the same amount of calories you can have basically the same amount of Lays chips (15 to be exact). The plus sides to the Terra sweet potato chips are that they have 90 grams of sodium less than the Lays chips, 3% less saturated fat, and unlike the Lays chip, uses expeller pressed canola oil (which does not strip the heart- healthy part of the oil with chemicals!!).

So what about other Terra chips?

Terra actually categorizes their chips by sweet potato chips, original potato chips, exotic potato chips, and exotic vegetable chips. So what kinds of vegetables make the cut for exotic? Parsnips, Batata, Taro, and Yuca. This is their ‘original bag’ which for 150 calories you can have 14 chips.

The plus sides to the Terra exotic chips are they have 10 calories from fat less than Lay, 120 less grams of sodium, and 1 less gram of fat.

One thing to keep in mind next time you’re in the snack aisle is that while vegetable chips are better for you then Lays chips, it’s not by much. As much as we would love to think so, remember these chips ARE NOT to be substituted for actual vegetables. Sorry but you have to eat those too!