Is Veggie Crisps Sea Salt Keto?

The Ingredient Breakdown

As a food scientist, I always look past the marketing claims on the front of the bag and go straight to the ingredient list. For Veggie Crisps Sea Salt, the composition tells a very different story than the name implies. The first two ingredients listed are potato flour and potato starch. These are the foundation of the crisp.

While they are technically derived from vegetables, they are concentrated sources of starch. In the world of nutrition, starch is essentially a complex carbohydrate that your body breaks down into glucose. For a keto diet, the goal is to limit glucose to maintain a state of ketosis. Potato flour and potato starch are high on the glycemic index and will spike blood sugar levels, making them incompatible with keto macros.

The remaining ingredients, such as expeller pressed sunflower oil, spinach powder, and beet powder, are added for flavor and color. However, their quantities are negligible compared to the massive load of potato starch. Essentially, this product is a potato chip disguised as a vegetable crisp.

Nutritional Value

When evaluating a product for keto, we look at the net carbs (Total Carbohydrates minus Fiber). While specific nutritional labels can vary slightly by brand, a standard serving of these crisps typically contains between 15 to 19 grams of total carbohydrates per serving. With very little dietary fiber, the net carb count remains dangerously high for keto.

Even if you were to limit yourself to a small handful, the caloric density comes primarily from the expeller pressed sunflower oil and the starch. While high fat is part of the keto diet, it needs to be paired with very low carbs. Here, the carb-to-fat ratio is skewed heavily toward carbohydrates. Consuming a full bag would likely exceed the daily carb limit (usually 20-50g) of a keto dieter in just one sitting.