Are Tortilla Chips Healthy? Calories, Nutrition and Tips

If you're looking for a crunchy, salty snack, Mexican tortilla chips fit the bill. As long as you don't eat too much, they can be incorporated into a healthy eating plan. When you're picking tortilla chips at the store, just watch out for sodium and trans fat ingredients.

Real Mexican tortilla chips from a restaurant or made at home are usually hand-cut and cooked in small batches, and this could affect their calorie and nutrient content. Most tortilla chip products you can buy will have similar nutritional value, depending on the manufacturing process and ingredients.

According to the USDA, a 1-ounce serving of white corn tortilla chips will give you:

• ​​Calories​:​ 150
• ​​Total fat​:​ 8 g
  • ​​Saturated fat​:​ 3.5 g
  • ​​Trans fat​:​ 0 g
• ​​Cholesterol​:​ 0 mg
• ​​Sodium​:​ 85.1 mg
• ​​Total carbs​:​ 18 g
  • ​​Dietary fiber​:​ 1 g
  • ​​Sugar​:​ 0 g
• ​​Protein​:​ 2 g

Generally, a 1-ounce serving of Mexican corn tortilla chips has about 150 calories.

• ​Total fat​:​ A 1-ounce serving of tortilla chips has 8 grams of total fat, which includes 3.5 grams of saturated fat and 0 grams of trans fat.
• ​​Carbohydrates​:​ A 1-ounce serving of tortilla chips has 18 grams of carbs, which includes 1 gram of fiber and 0 grams of sugar.
• ​​Protein​:​ A 1-ounce serving of tortilla chips has 2 grams of protein.

Tortilla chips are not a significant source of any vitamins, minerals or other micronutrients.

One of the most popular ways to eat tortilla chips is with a fresh salsa dip. Fresh salsa, or pico de gallo, is typically made by finely dicing some tomato, red onion, and jalapeno and seasoning with lime juice, salt, pepper and chopped cilantro.

Because salsa is made with fresh ingredients, it's not very high in calories, fat, protein or other nutrients. A 1-ounce serving of salsa has just about 5 calories (again, depending on how it's prepared), per the USDA.

If you're eating them together as a snack, this brings your chips and salsa calories to about 155 calories if you stick to a single serving.

Unflavored Mexican tortilla chips can be a part of a nutritious diet. Follow the tips below for incorporating them successfully.

When it comes to munching on tortilla chips, it can be easy to ignore the recommended serving suggestion size. Eating twice or thrice the serving size of tortilla chips can easily happen, but a single serving has 150 calories. This can add up if you're not keeping track of how much you're eating.

Non-nutritive, processed foods should make up a very small amount of the calories in your diet, but an occasional snack probably won't harm you.

The amount of fat you'll get per serving varies by brand, but 1 ounce of generic tortilla chips has 8 grams of fat, per the USDA.

But fried snacks like tortilla chips often contain trans fat, which comes from adding hydrogen to vegetable oil. This is typically done to give food products a longer shelf life, according to the Mayo Clinic.

These fats are worse for your health than saturated fats because they increase bad cholesterol, lower good cholesterol and trigger inflammation, according to Harvard Health Publishing.

You can enjoy tortilla chips if you stick with varieties that aren't heavily salted. An ounce of generic white corn tortilla chips will have around 86 milligrams of sodium, which isn't very significant.

Sodium is considered an essential mineral because the body needs it to function and doesn't produce it on its own. But, too much sodium can lead to high blood pressure, which in turn increases your risk for heart problems, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

A serving of tortilla chips can work in your diet as long as your total daily sodium doesn't exceed the recommended intake of 2,300 milligrams, per the AHA. If you have a heart condition, the AHA recommends eating no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day.

More than 70 percent of the sodium that Americans eat comes hidden from packaged foods and restaurant meals, per the AHA. If you're trying to eat less sodium, opt for unsalted tortilla chips.

The AHA suggests substituting baked unsalted tortilla chips for fried tortilla chips that are heavily salted or made with flavoring.

But if you're concerned about the health effects of eating tortilla chips, there are plenty of healthy tortilla chip alternatives you can enjoy. Homemade beet chips can be baked in the oven, as opposed to frying. Beets provide nutrients like fiber, potassium and vitamin C.

Popcorn is another nutritious alternative, especially air-popped popcorn, according to Michigan State University. Popcorn is naturally low in fat and calories, but also has lots of fiber.