Do you consider chips & salsa a junk food?

[Anonymous]

There's a new WSJ piece detailing a WSJ editor's journey on Mounjaro (similar to Ozempic). He claims as soon as he jumped off it, the first "bad" food he immediately craved was chips & salsa. Bad? That kind of popped off the page to me.

Am I just naive or is chips & salsa (or chips & guac) really not that unhealthy? Or maybe there are wide variances of tortilla chips people consume and there are some super unhealthy tortilla chips? Or jarred salsas full of tons of sodium?

We make fresh or buy the fresh salsa (or guac) at WF and use organic blue tortilla chips. I honestly never considered it a bad snack.

[Anonymous]

total junk food to me.

[Anonymous]

Salsa is very healthy depending on how it is made. Corn chips can be reasonably healthy depending on how they are made, also. I buy a locally made brand called Mi Nina which are minimally processed and have a good dietary profile.

I recently started eating mostly vegan and my breakfast every day is a cup of vegan refried black beans with salsa, corn chips and a little sour cream. I keep the chips to one serving and load each one with beans, salsa and a wee bit of sc. Delicious and very nutritious, because beans and corn chips paired creates a complete protein which builds and maintains muscle mass.

Anyone who thinks chips and salsa is total junk food has some nutritional science to learn, I think.

[Anonymous]

My vote is junk food.

[Anonymous]

Salsa has lycopene and other vitamins. Chips are unhealthy.

[Anonymous]

Junk

[Anonymous]

The problem with tortilla chips is the oil. But they are better relative to other types of chips. I enjoy chips and salsa but do limit the chips to the recommended serving size (plus a few extra now and then).

[Anonymous]

Fried tortilla chips are fun food. Natural salsa, especially homemade, i consider it in the vegetable category (larger ammount) or condiment (small ammount)

[Anonymous]

It's not "junk" in the sense that it is ultraprocessed (if you get good brands), but it doesn't have all that much nutritional value in terms of protein etc.

[Anonymous]

It’s in the junk food aisle.

[Anonymous]

Salsa is very good for you I put it in chicken and salmon.

Chips are not good for you but they are better than other chips.

[Anonymous]

Anyone seen that insta meme showing four chips equals a tortilla? Yeah not the worst but easy to way overdo it.

[Anonymous]

Depends on what you consider healthy and why. It's easy to get chips that have few ingredients, so a healthier choice than on Cheetos or something. But it's deep fried and salty and easy to eat too many of. So if you don't struggle with weight, I think they're fine. But if he's on the meds, he's struggling with weight and any kind of friend chip would be considered not healthy.

I gain weight by looking at food. I'm overweight but not obese. I intentionally keep things like chips (even "healthier" ones) out of the house.

[Anonymous]

Something like pico is basically just like eating tomatoes so not a junk food, but not a ton of nutrition either. The thinner store bought salsas are kind of just empty calories to me, though they’re not that high calorie so I don’t view them as terribly junky. Chips are chips. They’re not that good for you. Fresh guac is very healthy.

[Anonymous]

ANY food described at such a generic level can be healthy food or junk food depending on how it is made.

A hamburger from McDonald's is junk food. A burger made with high quality ingredients and eye toward macros is healthy.
Stouffer's frozen mac and cheese is junk food. A mac and cheese made with high quality ingredients and eaten in moderation is healthy.
Tostitos chips and Chi-chi's salsa is junk food. Pico de gallo with fresh made chips including high quality ingredients is healthy.

To be clear, I eat a good mix of both health food and "junk food." No judgment.