Review: Green Giant Multigrain Barbecue Sweet Potato Chips

Today's review is the introduction of another one of mega conglomerate General Mills' products to the blog with this Green Giant Multigrain Barbecue Sweet Potato Chips.  With that, I was reminded of one of the more terrifying things that I've ever seen on television.  Most of us today know the cartoon version of the Jolly Green Giant mascot and his little cartoon buddy that they use in the marketing on television, print, etc.  Have you ever seen when they used a real person painted green that dwarfed the made up set that they had put together?  I saw it once in a television special about old commercials and it was terrifying.  What is also terrifying is that I've now got the Green Giant song from the commercials stuck in my head.  AHHHH!!!!  Anyway, this was a sample package that I got in the mail to demo one of their new products (I'll get to the core Sweet Potato Chips later) and since this was a sample, the measurements are kind of skewed compared to what you'd find in the store, but I'll list them anyway.  This was a 0.8 ounce bag and had 110 calories.  Of those 110 calories, 45 came from fat, so that's not particularly wonderful, but I guess it could be worse.

Being that these are sweet potato chips, the most obvious observation to be made is that these chips are orange in color as opposed to the tan coloring of a normal potato chip.  On top of that potato chip are a variety of seasonings that include brown sugar, tomato powder, paprika, salt, "spice", onion powder, honey, molasses and mesquite smoke flavor, amount other things.  As for what "spice" is, I'll just leave that to yours and my imagination.  Not sure my photo does this justice, but the most prominent spices visible in the chip (and also smell able, which was very sweet) were the brown sugar and paprika.  I'd assume the tomato powder was part of that red dust too, but I didn't feel like getting the microscope out to differentiate between that and the paprika.  These were also quite airy and light and I'd compare them to a Baked Lays chip, for example.

For such a light chip, they had a fairly nice crunch to them.  Again, just like the aforementioned Baked Lays.  The flavor started off with a blast of sweetness from the natural flavoring of the sweet potatoes that was also helped along by the brown sugar, honey and molasses in the components of the chip which all just kind of blended together into one sweet punch.  At first, this didn't resemble barbecue at all and actually tasted more dessert like, which left me disappointed.  After waiting a couple seconds, that disappointment quickly faded away because the paprika and other mesquite-type spices starting heating up the point that there was no doubt that this was barbecue.  That flavor lingered as well and frankly, it almost required a glass of water.  That's how well done the barbecue flavor was in this.

Buy It or Fly By It?  I think the comparison that needs to be made is between this sweet potato version of a barbecue chip and a regular potato version of a barbecue.  When comparing the two, I think this sweet potato version holds up well, so I'll give it a BUY IT rating.  If you are like me and prefer your barbecue to be more on the sweet side as opposed to the smoky side, then this is right up your alley because it is definitely sweeter than a typical barbecue potato chip.  I know that after trying this sample, I'll have to seek these out in the store...when they are on sale, of course.  Now, if I could just get this darned Green Giant song out of my head.  Ho, ho, ho...

BUY IT!!