Lay's - Light Original Potato Chips Review

Quick View: I eat 1200 calories or less daily and under 30 grams of fat. I am at a weight I want to be and I try to maintain that by eating healthy and staying away from fatty foods. My husband brought me home a bag of Lay's Light Original Potato Chips and happily declared, "They're fat free!" And he was right. BUT they are not Olestra free and that fake fat has side effects all its own. Plus these chips coat my mouth with grease. Well, I mean fake grease.

My Take on Lay's Light Original Potato Chips

Don't get my wrong. Fat free potato chips are much better for people than greasy, blood vessel clogging fatty chips. I actually haven't had a real potato chip in years. I love pretzels and I eat baked potato chips on occasion.

Anyway, my husband bought these for me and was happy apparently that he found chips with no fat in them because he is all too aware that I never eat high fat foods. But like sugar free products, there's always a trade off.

The Good

These chips look like regular potato chips and are crunchy like them. A serving is 20 chips which I feel is generous. You will only be using up 75 calories and will not be taking in any fat. That has to be a good thing in its own way.  You get a gram of fiber and a small amount of sodium (200 mg.) but otherwise, nothing else stands out. They're just chips.

These are free of gluten, which is good for those who have problems digesting gluten and they are free of lactose for those who are lactose intolerant. Then again, do any chips have lactose in them? I don't know but these don't.

These chips taste decent. At first, I couldn't really tell the difference between them and full fat chips. But when I was done, I could. I guess that story is for the bad column.

The Bad

After eating these chips, I realized that my mouth felt greasy. My lips felt greasy. Everything felt greasy! But I just ate FAT FREE chips so why was mouth literally coated in what seemed to be grease?

Of course, it was the Olestra. Olestra is a "fake fat" which is used in products to reduce the fat content while still maintaining the fatty texture that we have seemingly come to love.

As for these chips, Olestra does make them taste fatty and obviously, greasy. But is Olestra safe? Well, yes and no. Here is an expert from a report on Olestra and Frito Lay, the company that makes these and other chips and snacks*.

"The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) today warned consumers that Frito-Lay's "Light" snack chips are fried in the infamous, diarrhea-inducing fake fat known as olestra. Formerly known as WOW! chips, the rebranded products are now called Lays's Light, Ruffles Light, Doritos Light, and Tostitos Light. CSPI says the move increases the odds that unwitting consumers will experience the cramps, diarrhea, bleeding, stained underwear, or incontinence associated with olestra."

OK, what? Stained underwear? Diarrhea? Cramps? These remind me of the diet aid Alli that people had such high hopes for but then decided that walking around with big orange stained underwear in public and being unable to control their bowels was less favorable than losing weight with the product. They have found other ways to do that that don't involve public humiliation and cramping.

Check out this little ditty about these chips: "Most of the reports involve diarrhea, gas, and cramps. Several of the recent victims sought emergency-room treatment, including a 33-year-old Georgia woman who experienced severe cramping and diarrhea after eating olestra-containing Ruffles chips. Several victims reported embarrassing episodes of fecal incontinence in the workplace; one 19-year-old man became incontinent on a date."

That poor 19 year old guy will never be the same!

In all, although these chips ARE low calorie and fat free and they taste OK - despite the greasy aftertaste. I'm sticking with pretzels or baked chips. I'll take the real fat and leave Olestra to those who don't mind losing control of their bowels after a lunch of a sandwich and these chips.

My Viewpoint

Lay's Light Original Potato Chips aren't grody. They taste OK if a bit bland. they are gluten free, casein free, soy free, and MSG free. They have no fat and a low amount of calories. If you don't experience any side effects and don't mind the greasy aftertaste, these chips make a good replacement for oil laden full fat chips.

However, for me, they're just not a good choice. I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome - or so they say - and people with IBS have enough uncertainty just eating everyday foods to mess with stuff known to cause issues. I'll pass on Lays Light Original Potato Chips. I love pretzels anyway and they are naturally fat free (or very close to it) and low in calories. I give these chips 2 stars. They're pricey and could cause stomach upset. Why chance it?

(*Source for above quotes: http://www.cspinet.org/new/200410251.html)