A Chip By Any Other Name

There are two kinds of people in the world: those that divide the world into two kinds of people and those that don’t. Since I am squarely in the former group, today I will divide the world into people that bring their lunch to work and people that don’t. And, once again, you will find me in the first group. I do it for a number of reasons: It’s not a big deal. It’s actually more convenient. And it costs a lot less, that’s for sure.

Rather than bringing a prepared lunch each day, I prefer to keep lunch fixin’s at work. Under this scheme, I can assemble sandwiches on demand. When certain ingredients run out, new ones are rotated in. It’s not a bad system, except for those rare days when all ingredients run out at the same time. (Most likely because I left them on the stupid counter at home, right next to the ice cream.)

On foodless days such as these, I must choose the lesser of many evils:

1. Buy one of those who-knows-how-old ham & cheese sandwiches from Vending Machine Number One. ($4.25)
2. Skip that and proceed to Vending Machine Number Two for a bag of Funyuns and some meat sticks. ($0.50)
3. Venture out for a burger, fries, and shake. (Easily $8.00 for a halfway decent set)
4. Go hungry. (Free. But I’ll end up falling back on Option #2 around 3:30 anyway…)
5. Make a grocery store run. (Priceless)

Last Monday was one such day and I opted for Option #5. So off I went for a loaf of bread, a containera milk, and a sticka butta. Er, I mean … a loaf of bread, a containera lunch meat, and a package-a cheese. After procuring these items, I realized what I really wanted needed was something crunchy to go along with this fine sandwich-to-be. So it was off to the Chip Aisle.

The Chip Aisle. Oh, what a place. Rank upon rank of snacks salute you as pass through their midst. You flitter with heady joy from side to side, childlike wonder in your eyes, as you survey the thousands of salty possibilities before you. But beware, brave knights! If you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all in nasty, big, family-sized bags.

Anyway, back to the point of this pointless story. I ended up buying a bag of Veggie Chips. They’re packaged in a very healthful-looking, green bag. Said bag proclaims the chips therein are made with “real natural potatoes, tomatoes and spinach.” The photo here shows one chip each of potato, tomato, and spinach.

Now because they’re called Veggie Chips and come in a fancy green bag, I can only suppose they’re hoping people don’t realize what’s really going on. The top three ingredients are: potatoes, oil, and salt.

Potatoes, oil, and salt? Hmmm… well, okay. I suppose if you think about it, regular potato chips are “veggie chips” as well. Heck, even Doritos, when you get right down to it, are “veggie chips.” Just because one is sprinkled liberally with Cool Ranch molecules and the other with spinach powder doesn’t make a bit of difference to your bottom line.

And that’s the moral of the story. Don’t be swayed by frilly packaging or marketing-speak. You know better. (And you know you know better.)

Me, I don’t think these chips are very good without gobs of sour cream and onion dip. I’m heading back to the fridge for some right now.