Nibbling in the nineties.

Is There Really Such a Thing as a Sinless Snack?

When nutritionist Jane Hurley walked down the potato chip aisle of a supermarket just five years ago, she left with a conclusion that would make a couch potato cringe with guilt: Pretzels. That's it. If thigh-hugging fat or blood-pressure-zinging sodium was an issue, the only thing you could safely eat was unsalted pretzels.

Boy, how things change.

"I wouldn't have thought it possible," says Hurley, associate nutritionist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSFI) in Washington, DC. When it came time for her to prepare a CSPI report on the best salty nibbles of 1993, she had to evaluate "hundreds and hundreds" of available snacks.

Indeed, the development of healthier products by snack food makers has pushed sales to $400 million in 1992, up 43 percent from the previous year, according to the trade publication Prepared Foods. While sales of old-standby potato chips rose by just 1.5 percent in 1992, healthier multi-grain chips practically flew off the shelves with sales rising 76.5 percent, according to another trade publication, the U.S. Distribution Journal. "Just walk down the supermarket aisle," Hurley says. "It's incredible how much space is devoted to these things."

But the big question on many people's minds is "How do they taste?" Even though we all know better, notoriously fatty, salty potato chips remain the top sellers for parties and cookouts, according to a 1991 report, "The U.S. Snack Food Market," by Business Trend Analysts (BTA), a market research firm based in Commack, New York. The kings of the snack bowl? Potato chips and sticks account for about half of total chip sales; corn chips account for much of the rest, says the report. Cash registers rung up $6.6 billion in salty snack sales in 1990, and that's expected to double by the turn of the century, predicts BTA.

But as our waistlines have expanded, so have healthy snack lines and promotions. The National Cancer Institute recommends eating more popcorn. The American Dental Association also includes popcorn on its list of recommended sugar-free snacks. "Whether you know it or not, you are about to do something good for your body," states the bag of No Fries Potato Snacks, touting 90 percent less fat than the leading fried chip.

Yet, not all so-called healthy or natural snacks are good for you. Tasty, thick, salsa-flavored Kettle Chips of Salem, Oregon, might be made with the best quality safflower oil, without sugar or artificial flavorings - but 50 percent of its calories come from fat. Hard-to-resist Bearitos white cheddar popcorn and Westbrae's decidedly tasty 100 percent Organic Potato Chips both have as much fat and calories as Lay's Sour Cream & Onion potato chips. Even poor-scoring Doritos actually ranks higher on the nutrition scale than seemingly healthy Smartfood Cheddar Popcorn, says CSPI's Nutrition Action Healthletter

Garden of Eatin chips aren't unlike Doritos, with 45 percent of their calories coming from fat, according to the newsletter Environmental Nutrition. And SunChips French Onion Multigrain Snacks also sounds pretty healthy, but 45 percent of its calories, too, are from fat.

Childers' baked, not fried, unique-tasting potato chips, with just one gram of fat per one-ounce serving, offer refuge for chip-aholics. And Harry's "Fat Free" Gourmet baked tortilla chips, with the same amount of fat, are fairly bland - but tasty when dipped in salsa.

But no matter how fattening the nibbles might be, if they are organic - a growing term in the snack-food world - that's a plus: Three in five Americans said they were "very concerned" about the health risks posed by pesticides and chemicals used to grow food products, according to a 1993 study by the consumer advocacy group, Public Voice for Food and Health Policy. Three in five also said they would be "much more likely" to look in stores for food grown with fewer or no chemicals. "Cut the numbers in half because of consumers' tendencies to exaggerate their pro-environmental behavior, and that still leaves an impressive one-third of American consumers who are willing to change their buying behavior," concludes Green Market Alert of Bethlehem, Connecticut.

Sample enough natural pretzels, popcorn and chips and you may taste a lot of delicate flavors that won't hit you over the head like coated Doritos. Even better, surprisingly few taste like Styrofoam. One informal panel considered Garden of Eatin's new Totopos Chili & Lime tortilla chips the most interesting chip they'd ever eaten. The same maker's Sesame Blues have a crispy texture and subtly intriguing sesame taste, and their thick Sanny Blues feature interesting splotches of sunflower seeds within a deep-blue chip.

But some snacks are like Howard Cosell: You either love |em or you hate |em.

Take the zingy, wild Japanese horse-radish flavor of Eden Foods' Hot |n Spicy Wasabi Chips, which taste like the green condiment on a plate of sushi. It won over most tasters hands down - but not all of them. Garden of Eatin's Black Bean Chili Tortilla Chips bring out an artist's palette of flavors when dipped in salsa, but some find its powdery coating reminiscent of sawdust. New York City chefs Dana Sinkler and Alexander Dzieduszycki developed the delicate, nutty, and sometimes sweet flavors of Terra Chips - a potpourri Of sweet potatoes, yucca, parsnip and other flavors. These chips are pleasing to the eye and palate, but to some, they taste bland.

Some snack promotions make you wonder whether man or woman really could live by chip alone. Barbara's Blue Corn Chips come from "an ancient variety of native American corn" that is "21 percent higher in protein, 7 percent lower in fat" and so on, the bag reads. And Garden of Eatin's Original Blue Chips bags state that, among Hopi and Zuni Indians, blue corn "was believed to have spiritual and healing powers."

Marketers have seen the future, and it is in the snack food aisle: Researchers are trying to develop a no-fat baked snack that doesn't taste dry. They've already invented a microwave drying process to make fat-free potato chips possible. Even snack giant Frito-Lay is onto the health trend. It developed light versions of Chee-tos, Doritos and Ruffles in 1990, then spent $40 million in new equipment to make SunChips. Its Smartfoods subsidiary leads the growing popped popcorn market, according to BTA. Meanwhile, smaller Harry's, Premium Snacks of Syosset, New York, reports at least doubled sales each year since 1988.

So what's a consumer to do? Read labels. Just because a snack is in the natural foods store doesn't make it healthier than an apple. Couch potatoes, be forewarned: If you're substituting these snacks for a fruit or vegetable, then you haven't improved your diet. But if fatty potato chips are more your style, then, in this case, it may be better to switch than fight.