According to the Frito-Lay North America, Inc., Ruffles Original Potato Chips contain just three ingredients: potatoes, oil and salt. However, with nine different flavors of potato chips, much more goes into these other chips then just potatoes, oil and salt. With the addition of more ingredients, such as artificial flavors, colors and preservatives, the nutritional value suffers.
Ingredients
Ruffles Original Potato Chips contain potatoes, sunflower and or corn oil and salt with no preservatives. Ruffles Authentic Barbecue Flavored Potato Chips contain the same ingredient as the Original chips plus sugar, corn maltodextrin, dextrose, brown sugar, onion powder, monosodium glutamate, spices, tomato powder, molasses solids, yeast extract, modified corn starch, artificial colors, garlic powder, corn starch, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors and mesquite smoke flavor, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate. Other flavors can have as much as 30 additional ingredients.
Sodium
Salt or sodium chloride, one of the essential minerals, occurs naturally in some foods, such as potatoes. However, a majority of snack foods have an abundance of added sodium added for taste, such as potato chips. Imagine eating an unsalted potato chip. High amounts of sodium can have a detrimental effect for individuals with high blood pressure. A high sodium intake, meaning over 2,300 mg daily, according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005, encourages the body to retain fluid, which taxes the heart by forcing it to work harder to pump this excess fluid, along with blood, throughout the body.
Fats
One downside of eating potato chips is the amount of fat absorbed in the chip during processing. Ruffles Potato Chips are cooked in corn and or sunflower oil, which are high in unsaturated, both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated, fats. These fats are preferred over saturated or trans fats. Trans fats are altered in order to remain stable and solid at room temperature, and can raise your LDL or bad cholesterol levels; these elevated levels are known to increase the risk of heart disease. These chips do not contain trans fats, but they do contain 1g of saturated fat per serving.
Nutrition Facts
One serving of Ruffles Original Potato Chips is equal to 1 oz. or 28g, which is about 15 potato chips. Each serving has 160 calories, with 90 calories from fat and a total fat content of 10g. Within this 10g of fat are 1g of saturated fat and 4.5g each of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. These chips have no cholesterol, 160mg of sodium, 340mg of potassium, 14g of total carbohydrates with 1g of dietary fiber, no sugars and 2g of protein.
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