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McCain Chips in With a ‘healthy’ Variety of Chips

by Savitha C Muppala on Jan 11 2007 1:45 PM

There is a healthy crackle in the air! We have just been chipped in with this hearty piece of news about an all time favorite – chips! Wipe away that guilt and let yourself have a go at this entrant- McCain’s frozen oven chips.

The complete range of McCain’s frozen chips has received the ‘green-signal’ from the Food Standards Agency, after portraying low levels of sugar, salt, fat and saturated fat. The agency has accorded this brand of chips with the ‘green light’ status. A spokesman for McCain said, "they contain no cholesterol and can help achieve a healthy, balanced diet without too much sacrifice.”

The food standards agency has put in place the traffic light system to label foods according to their content and contribution to health. If a food needs to be categorized under ‘green light’, it must contain (per 100g): 3g or less of fat, 1.5g or less of saturated fat, 5g or less of sugar and 0.3g or less of salt.

While some are chilling over chips after this piece of news, there are a few others whose chip inside (read brain) has begun working overtime. A blanket go-ahead for chips may actually mislead the public, they aver.

Miranda Watson, consumer group spokeswoman said, "Many people think of chips as being unhealthy, but as McCain has shown, that is not always the case. The traffic lights show this very clearly and having them will help consumers see very easily which chips are healthier than others. Having said that, we now want all manufacturers and retailers to put traffic lights on their packages because at the moment, with different labels, it is going to be difficult to compare."

Source-Medindia
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