# If Potato Chips Are "Junk Food", Then Why Do They Have So Much Vitamin C in Them? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 11, 2002, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885 "2002-09-11T01:00:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/1 "2002-09-11T01:00:01Z")
I have actually been wondering this for some time now. Potato chips are classified as junk food. I don’t think there is any disagreement about this among nutritionists. The only problem is this: they have alot of what would seem to be vital nutrients in them. I have a sample bag on hand here. It has 14% of the recommended daily value for Vitamin C. It also has 3% daily value for Iron. It has 1 gram dietary fiber–about the same as most grain products. Plus the bag I have has 9 grams unsaturated fat and 3 grams of protein. For comparison, I also have a can of Butter Beans on hand. You know, the canning process destroys alot of the food’s natural vitamins and other stuff. The potato chips have the Butter Beans beat on Vitamin C–the Butter Beans have _no_ Vitamin C in them. Beans are a good source of fiber–but it only has four times the amount of fiber with 4 grams. It also only has a little more protein than the potato chips, and very little unsaturated fat. What gives? Why are the “junk food” potato chips more healthy for you than Butter Beans? And since **all** food is bound to have some nutrients in them, is there really such a thing as “junk” food? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/2 "2002-09-11T01:27:38Z")
What’s the serving size on that bag of chips? Remember, the nutrition information is per serving, and snack foods are the kinds of things that people tend to eat a lot of in one sitting. Many snack foods also have abominably high sodium levels. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/3 "2002-09-11T01:32:43Z")
A Butter Bean sounds like junk food…what the heck is one? ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/4 "2002-09-11T01:32:51Z")
Assuming your question isn’t rhetorical, it is one-serving-per-bag. Actually, your body need sodium too. It uses sodium and potassium to communicate between nerve cells. If you didn’t have any sodium, you’d die. Although in reality I’ve never heard of that happening, because as you said, most things have way too much sodium in them to begin with. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/5 "2002-09-11T01:38:01Z")
**Neurotik** butter beans are just a type of bean. They don’t really have any butter in them. I guess the name comes from the color and texture of the beans. Maybe you may call them something different in Virginia ;). ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/6 "2002-09-11T01:42:53Z")
> [@](#): > > If you didn’t have any sodium, you’d die. Although in reality I’ve never heard of that happening, because as you said, most things have way too much sodium in them to begin with. Actually, sodium deficiency is fairly common. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/7 "2002-09-11T02:18:15Z")
FYI I just fished the bag out of the trash can :eek:, and it has 170mg of Sodium–just 8% of the daily value for that nutrient. So you’d have to eat 12.5 bags to get the maximum amount of Sodium we are expected to get each day. But who could ever eat just one ;)? ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/8 "2002-09-11T02:47:41Z")
What we call butter beans here in Ky are lima beans elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/90db22/32.png) [@Earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthling)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/9 "2002-09-11T03:01:02Z")
I am neither a doctor nor a dietician, but I’ll stick my neck out anyway… The issue is not simply a matter of what nutrients are present or absent in each item item you eat, but the balance of the nutrients that comprise your total daily food intake. It is my impression that potato chips are considered junk food because of their fat content. For example, [Frito-Lay](http://www.fritolay.com/nutrition/facts.shtml) tells us that each ounce of Lay’s Classic chips contains 150 calories total, 90 of which are from fat; there are also 3 grams of saturated fat. I don’t know what is the serving size or how the numbers correlate to thr RDA, but I think it’s significant that more than half of the potato chips’ calories come from fat. In comparison, Baked Lays (regular potato chips are fried, in case anyone doesn’t already know) contain 110 total and 15 fat calories per ounce, and 0 grams of saturated fat. From [another site](http://www.nutrio.com/servlet/nutrio?page=63&cat=0), I found several nutrition labels for butter beans, but [this](http://www.nutrio.com/servlet/nutrio?page=63&cat=0&action=3&food=41357) is typical – 100 calories total cal., 8.3 fat cal., and 0% sat. fat per serving. Now, fat _is_ a necessary part of our diets, but like I said, it’s all in the balance. ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/10 "2002-09-11T04:14:08Z")
Having vitamin C does not make something good for you, be they onion rings or screwdrivers. Potato chips are ‘junk food’ because they are very high in saturated fat. That is not to say you should never eat them, it’s just that eating a lot of potato chips probably isn’t very good for you. Having nutrients isn’t the be-all and end-all of a healthy diet. If that were the case, you could simply grind up a bottle of vitamins and blend them in with your chocolate malts instead of eating healthier foods like brown rice or raw vegetables. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/11 "2002-09-11T13:33:54Z")
How about those “fat-free” chips or the baked ones? ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/12 "2002-09-11T14:16:28Z")
There is no such thing as ‘junk food’, and no such thing as ‘good for you’ and ‘bad for you’ foods. There is no poison in potato chips. Excessive consumption of certain food items can have certain adverse affects in certain people. Excessive calories: A bag of chips (even a big grab bag that has 300 calories or 150 per serving) isn’t ‘bad for you’. However, it’s the total overall diet of people who frequently eat fried food, fast foods, refined sugars, saturated fats, etc. Let’s see…I just ate some chips this weekend. They weren’t bad for me. I am 5-10, 180 lbs and 15% body fat. But today is Wednesday and I haven’t had chips since then. Additionally, I haven’t eaten over 3,000 calories in any of the past umpteen days. Here is the real issue: We all have a calorie and nutrition budget. \*Potato chips are very exspensive items in our dietay budget: they consume a great deal of our sodium allowance, our fat allowance and our calorie allowance, while providing little in return. Even from hunger suppression, they are poor because they tend to drive appetite up (salty, light, easy to carry along) But, even beans when prepared poorly can eat alot of our dietary budget. EVEN BROWN RICE can be a tough thing to fit in. Say you are a 135 pound female…you are limted to about 1800 calories per day to maintain weight…and you eat a large serving of brown rice. Just the rice could suck up 33% of your calorie allotment! We up against quantity and frequency: - Large servings of Potato chips and candy bars almost every day - Large portions of Fast food several times a week - Butters and oils used to excess daily - Frequent sugary drinks and sweets daily I eat everything, provided I fit it into my dietary budget. Nothing is really bad for me, provided it isn’t poisoned or contaminated. I’m looking forward to some Wendy’s or Mickee Dees…but not this week. Maybe next week…maybe in two weeks, as a treat. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/13 "2002-09-11T14:22:20Z")
Fats: in beans, cold water fish and nuts, fat is your friend. It’s the saturated animal fat that gives fat a bad name. Fat in land animals and dairy products are killers because they are easy to eat in large quantities, and they are the artery cloggers. Soybeans, nuts, salmon/other fish: all high in fat. But, any bright person would include multiple servings of these foods every week. Now, I believe palm and coconut oils have saturated fats, but other than that, only land animals really introduce sat. fats into our diets. Again, sat fat isn’t ‘bad’, but it is easy to get too much of it…and that makes it bad. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/14 "2002-09-11T14:29:20Z")
there is no poison in potato chips except the green ones… ---
**Author:** ![scout1222](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@scout1222](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scout1222)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-potato-chips-are-junk-food-then-why-do-they-have-so-much-vitamin-c-in-them/127885/15 "2002-09-11T14:51:24Z")
Thank you, **Philster** , that was very well put.