La Favorita's Tortilla Chip Deception
This company is perpetuating a tortilla chip fraud right in front of our eyes and, as a passionate tortilla chip lover, I just can't sit by. Not with tortilla chips. No, not with ANY salty snack. Not this time.
When I was 11, I stood there like an idiot when Pringles called themselves potato chips. I knew full well that that didn't make any sense, that it couldn't possibly be right, but I said nothing . . . NOTHING!! As delicious as they are, they certainly aren't potato chips. This time the truth must be exposed. So, to La Favorita, this I say to you: Welcome to Truthsville via MathTown, population YOU.
The Chips in Question
The chips in question are La Favorita Yellow Corn Tortilla Chips. If you are to believe the product label, these chips are crispy, crunchy (sounds delicious so far!), and lite. These sound fantastic and . . . wait . . . . lite? What do they mean by lite? Hmmmm. Surely we can find out more about what they mean by lite.
The Nutrition Label
We will soon see how this nutrition label fails its own internal logic
Examining the La Favorita nutrition label, here's what we see:
- Serving Size: 1oz (28g)
- Total Calories: 70
- Total Fat: 2.5g
- Total Carbohydrate: 12g
- Protein: 1g
So that's great! Most tortilla chips have 130-140 calories per 28-30g serving, so eating these chips is a caloric win because they're lite! Take a look at the Tostitos nutrition label below: pretty simple ingredient blend (corn, vegetable oil, salt).
All that for 140 calories for a 28g serving of Tostitos. At this point, you may be asking Hey, you cunning, suave rascal, what in the world is wrong with anything here?! I can eat twice the amount of La Favorita chips for the same calories!!!1!!one1!
Well first, thank you for those kind, valid words, and second, it's La Favorita's math that is wrong.
A Quick Refresher
Calories in food come from 4 major sources: fats, carbohydrates, alcohols, proteins. Each of those sources contains the following amount of calories per gram:
- Carbohydrate: 4
- Protein: 4
- Alcohol: 7
- Fat: 9
Also, notice how those same values are listed on the Tostitos nutrition label but not on the La Favorita label.
The Math
Now look at the La Favorita nutrition label again, adding up the calories per source:
- Total Fat: 2.5g --> 2.5g * 9cal/g = 22.5 cal
- Total Carbohydrate: 12g --> 12g * 4cal/g = 48 cal
- Protein: 1g --> 1g * 4cal/g = 4 cal
Totaling these up: 74.5 calories.
Pretty close, then, to the stated 70 calories on the label; not bad. So what's my gripe?
The Other Math
Now then, we get to it. The delicious, crispy deception isn't on the side where they calculate calories, it's on the side where they calculate the breakdown of the size of the serving.
Recall that the serving size from the label is 28g. According to their breakdown, per serving:
- Total Fat: 2.5g
- Total Carbohydrate: 12g
- Protein: 1g
Total up those grams and you get (2.5 + 12 + 1)g = 15.5g
Yup. We're missing 12.5g of the stated 28g serving size. In some foods, that discrepancy can be explained by the presence of water. So unless they are expecting you to believe that the 28g serving size of their crispy, crunchy (their words) tortilla chips includes 12.5g of water, we can conclude that something strange is afoot because, if science has taught us anything, crispiness cannot flourish in a product that is 45% water (by weight).
Additionally, take another look at the Tostitos nutrition label above: 7g fat + 19g carb + 2g protein = 28g
This matches the serving size of 28g. With this, we see that the weight of the component calorie sources should match up with the stated serving size when dealing with tortilla chips.
Conclusion
Reasonably, we can attribute La Favorita's incorrect nutrition label to one of two things:
- They can't do math
- They are trying to deceive you into thinking a serving of their "lite" chips has less calories than it really does
I, for one, firmly believe that they can do math. My reasons for believing this are twofold:
- They are running a company: it takes math to keep track of monies and such; this math skill can also be applied to validating nutrition labels
- Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are basic concepts and have been mastered by millions of 6th graders (over 50% of which don't own a company, according to studies that I am sure exist somewhere)
This amounts to outright deception . . . and treachery.
So What of This?
The whole point here is how much you care about the type of company you want to buy food from, especially crispy, crunchy, enjoyable tortilla chips. With all the snackworthy tortilla chip options on the market, why support a company that chooses to deceive their customers? Or, if you are ok with this blatant misrepresentation, may I recommend enjoying those fraudulent La Favorita tortilla chips with Jose Cuervo Gold tequila? You'll love the real** tequila experience you get with Jose Cuervo Gold!
** fake