If you’re one of those people who are striving to eat better, but can’t give up completely on snacks, it’s likely you may have opted to go with veggie straws in place of potato chips. Unfortunately, they’re probably worse for you than the potato chips. Many of the ingredients in veggie straws are extracted powders and starches from vegetables. The extraction process by which these novel food-like products are produced breaks down many of the nutrients that you would find in the vegetables they're derived from. This process gets rid of a lot of the good stuff. That’s because the vegetables have been processed into dust, leaving them with almost no fiber, no protein content, and just a tiny bit of Vitamin C and iron. What you do get is fat — veggie straws have 130 calories per serving, but almost half of that comes from fat that’s introduced by the oils that are used in their preparation. This is the essence of why veggie straws are so unhealthy. They take the good name of vegetables and use it for marketing purposes to triumph over potato chips. While potato chips aren’t a healthy option either, they’re actually healthier than veggie straws. In the end, it’s recommended that you choose something healthier to snack on — like real vegetables.
