Garden Harvest Toasted Chips

By: Caroline Yoder | Jan 27, 2008

Recently, there has been a discussion on the food forum about "simple substitutions." When you're watching your weight, it's important to allow yourself healthful versions of the foods you love in order to avoid feeling deprived. Baked chips, for example, are more healthful alternative to the real deal. Nabisco recently released a new chip alternative with their Garden Harvest line. These toasted chips boast 60% less fat than your standard Lays or Ruffles. The Nabisco website recently offered free samples of these snack aisle newbies, so I decided to give them a try.

I received two individual servings in the mail, Tomato-Basil and Banana chips. Both varieties were quite tasty, yet neither seemed remotely like a potato chip. First of all, I don't recall ever tasting a tomato-ey or banana-ish potato chip. Secondly, the texture was decidedly more cracker-like. Aside from their dissimilarity to chips, these snacks were quite tasty. When I was eating the tomato-basil variety, I felt like I was eating tiny, crispy little pizzas.

The banana flavor was slightly off-putting due to its sweetness. I am accustomed to thinking of chips and crackers as strictly savory. Nevertheless, they were delicious; I can picture crumbling these "chips" into a container of yogurt or non-fat pudding. Garden Harvest chips also come in Vegetable Medley and Apple Cinnamon flavors.

Each 1 ounce serving of Garden Harvest Toasted Chips contains 120 calories, 3 grams of fat and 2 grams of protein. Due to the use of whole grain wheat flour, each serving also contains 3 grams of fiber. As a bonus, noshing on the apple or banana flavors contribute toward your daily fruit servings: 1/2 of a fruit serving for each ounce of the chips. Although these chips don't provide nearly as many benefits as whole fruit does, it's a nice added perk.

I received my samples free, but you can find these chips on the snack aisle at your local grocery. One 6 ounce bag regularly costs $2.99. Another product I liked that was similar to this one is Eat Smart Baked Sweet Potato Crisps.

/* Note from Tanya: "Banana chips" are a very popular snack in Jamaica, where I'm from. It is always a salty type snack made from green (unripe) bananas, so I was also a bit surprised at the flavor when I tried the "sweet" Garden Harvest Chips (probably made from ripe bananas). I prefer the salty version.

Rating

Taste:

Nutrition:

Price:

Overall:

See more on: Chips , veggie chips   comments (3)