But it wasn’t turkey they were stuffed with. They ate potato chips – 14,500 tons of them! Americans spend more than $50 million annually stocking up on snack food for Super Bowl weekend.

Michigan is a key player in the Super Bowl Sunday snackfest. The state leads the nation in production of potatoes for those chips that millions are munching. Michigan producers grew more than 1.4 billion pounds of potatoes in 2001 on 46,000 acres, placing them ninth among states in potato production.

About 82 percent of Michigan potatoes are whites, which are sold for table use or processed for potato chips. The state’s producers also grow russets and reds, which comprise about 15 and 3 percent of the planted acres, respectively. Russets are used for french fries and other frozen products, and reds are generally sold for table use.

History of the chip
From its humble beginnings in 1853, when the potato chip was created as a joke by George Crum in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., demand for this popular snack food has continued to increase. Chip manufacturers have answered the demand by creating chips in a variety of flavors, trying to keep their grip on the snack food market.

There are dozens of potato chip brands sold throughout the United States; Michigan is home to three: Better Made, Made Rite and Cabana. In the early ‘50s, a Detroit plant also produced New Era brand potato chips. The company’s logo was a black silhouette of a thin woman, seeming to imply that chips were not fattening. The American public couldn’t resist; in 1951, New Era outsold the competition by three-to-one.

Rising potato prices, a gas shortage and soaring labor costs in the early ‘70s forced many potato chip makers out of business. Better Made brand, founded in 1930, survived and remains Detroit’s biggest seller, using Michigan potatoes for more than two-thirds of their production. But New Era felt the economic strain and was forced to sell out to Frito-Lay. The plant was closed in 1981, but you can still find silos around the state with the distinctive New Era logo.

Delicious and Nutritious
Most Americans weren’t fooled by the skinny woman on the New Era chip bag … potato chips won’t make us thin. But you might be surprised to find out that potato chips really aren’t as unhealthy as we’re led to believe.

According to the Michigan Potato Industry Commission, the 10 grams of fat you see on the label of a one-ounce bag translate into about 2-1/4 teaspoons. That’s less than most people use to pop a batch of popcorn. And the oil used to cook the chips is almost exclusively unsaturated vegetable oil, so there’s no cholesterol.

Potato chips are salted after the chips are cooked, which makes them taste saltier than they really are. A one-ounce bag of chips contains approximately 175 milligrams of sodium. That’s no more than you’ll find in a couple of slices of bread.

And potato chips are a source of vitamin C, vitamin B-6, and 11 other important nutrients. In fact, a one-ounce bag (about 15 chips) has almost twice the potassium of a glass of orange juice. No big surprise, really, since the potatoes they come from are one of the best sources of potassium you can find. That bag of chips also has as much fiber as four slices of cracked-wheat bread.

So support the potato growers of Michigan … enjoy those potato chips with your Super Bowl game. They may not make you as slender as the New Era silhouette, but they’re a tasty, great American snack food tradition.

Take a virtual tour of Detroit’s Better Made Potato Chip factory.

Sources:
Michigan Agricultural Statistics Service

National Agricultural Statistics Service

www.bettermadepotatochips.com, 7/25/02

Snack Food Association – www.sfa.org, 7/22/2002

Michigan Potato Industry Commission – www.mipotato.com, 7/22/2002

Detroit News – www.detnews.com, 7/22/2002

www.enchantedlearning.com, 7/22/2002

USA Today – www.usatoday.com, 7/22/2002

National Football League