Easy to eat, available in a variety of flavours, and incredibly addictive, chips are the quintessential snack food! But if you’re health-conscious and want chips with the lowest calories, reduced salt, lower fat or anything else, you’ll need to shop smart.
To help you get started, we’ve rounded up 8 varieties of chips with lower calories, fat and sodium than some of the other packets you’ll find on supermarket shelves.
Smith’s Oven Baked Potato Chips
Calories per serve: 112
Flavours: Sea salt
How are they made: Baked
Buy them at: Woolworths, Coles, IGA
Smith’s Oven Baked variety of chips claims to have 50 per cent less fat that regular potato chips, coming in at around 4g per 25g serving. In comparison, regular Smith’s Crinkle Cut Potato Chips have 8.7g of fat for the same serving size, and around 137 calories.
Vege Chips
Calories per serve: 91
Flavours: Original, BBQ, Chicken, Sweet and Sour, Salt and Vinegar
How are they made: Baked
Buy them at: Woolworths, Coles, IGA
These Australian-made chips have been around for 25 years and are a popular gluten free snack. The company has done the hard yards to make sure its products taste great all the while being free from eggs, artificial colouring and preservatives.
Kettle Classic Sea Salt Potato Chips
Calories per serve: 120
Flavours: Salt
How are they made: Baked
Buy them at: Woolworths, Coles, IGA
These Kettle potato chips are slowly cooked and have slightly lower fat than regular potato chips. They’re also made with natural, gluten-free ingredients.
Lay’s Oven Baked Original Potato Chips
Calories per serve: 120
Flavours: Original
How are they made: Baked
Buy them at: U-buy and eBay
This Lay’s variant is made with an air fryer, reducing the fat from the original recipe and using less salt in the process. But you should keep in mind that the reduction in sodium and total fat content is pretty small compared to other healthy alternatives, and there’s been no changes made to the amount of carbs it has.
Sunchips Original Multigrain Snacks
Calories per serve: 140
Flavours: French Onion, Garden Salsa, Harvest Cheddar, Original, Sweet Potato and Brown Sugar, Four Cheese
How are they made: Fried
Buy them at: eBay
Crisps aren’t usually a good source of fibre, but multigrain snacks like Sunchips flip the script with their 100% corn-based crisps. They offer a wide variety of flavours, but if you’re trying to trim down on the salt, the original recipe has the least sodium of the bunch.
Garden of Eatin’ Blue Corn Tortilla Chips
Calories per serve: 140
Flavours: Blue Corn
How are they made: Baked
Buy them at: iHerb
All-organic and a ketogenic favourite, Garden of Eatin’s Blue Corn Tortilla Chips are the healthiest crisps you can eat. With almost zero saturated fat and an incredibly low salt content at 60 milligrams per serve, it’s the perfect snack for any health-conscious chip lover.
Popchips Sea Salt
Calories per serve: 120
Flavours: Varied, including the Sea Salt
How are they made: Baked
Buy them at: iHerb
Popchips prides themselves on making products with no artificial ingredients, preferring to rely on natural flavouring to bring out their distinctly rich taste. If you’re looking for a tasty pack of chips that’s low in fat and sodium go for their Sweet Potato.
Pringles Reduced Fat Original
Calories per serve: 140
Flavours: Original
How are they made: Fried
Buy them at: eBay
Pringles isn’t high on the list of what we consider healthy chips, but their reduced-fat version is a welcome alternative. It contains fewer calories, fat, and sodium than the original recipe, but keeps the same amount of carbs and seasoning. It’s a good alternative if you love Pringles, but it’s pretty unhealthy compared to other products on this list and is also harder to get in Australia.
3 things keep in mind when looking for the chips with the lowest calories
- Serving size: In Australia, most chip serving sizes are around 25 grams. As that isn’t very many chips, you may want to look at the calories per 100g to get a sense of how much you’ll be eating and to compare other brands.
- Other nutritional information: Just because something is low calorie doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Remember to consider the other details in the nutritional panel that may be relevant to you, such as overall fat, saturated fat and carbohydrate quantities.
- Health Star Ratings: In Australia, many chips are part of the Health Star Rating system. This gives you a visual way to consider different packets of chips. But if you have specific nutritional or calorie goals, it’s probably still a good idea to check the details for any brands you’re thinking of buying.
