Did someone say chips on keto? Quest Nutrition is quite a famous brand when it comes to healthy snacking! In this article, we’ll clear all your queries regarding: Are Quest chips keto?
In my initial keto days, I had insane cravings for chips! I completely LOVE potato chips and in fact, they are the reason why I HAD to start dieting in the first place, lol!
Quest upped their low-carb game with the launch of tortilla style protein chips. You’ll be amazed to know that they have 8 different flavors to choose from!
Quest Nutrition is definitely putting in a lot of efforts for low carb enthusiasts like us! Let’s explore how their tortilla style chips fit into our keto diet, and what other options do we have.
Are Quest Protein Chips Keto?
Quest protein chips are keto-friendly in moderation. You can have half a packet in a day which provides you with 2g of net carbs. Pair them with a high-fat dressing to increase fats.
In a high-fat diet like keto, we are mostly juggling between fats and carbs. This often leaves us with little time to think about our protein intake!
This is where protein supplements and protein-rich snacks like Quest chips come to our rescue!
One pack of chips contains 18g of protein which makes it a quite healthy snack for the keto diet! Throw in a dip of high-fat dressing to make a perfect keto-friendly meal.
All of their flavors such as Spicy Sweet Chili, BBQ, Loaded Taco, etc have roughly the same amount of net carbs. This saves us a lot of confusion while selecting the variant!
The same number of carbs means that you can freely select the flavor based on the taste! No more struggling with – “I actually want THIS one but THAT one has much fewer carbs…hmmm!!”
But the main question here is – Is half a packet of chips filling enough to curb those cravings? Should the Quest chips make it to your keto-snack list during grocery shopping?
We know that one pack of Quest protein chips has 4g of net carbs and just 6g of fats. Don’t you think this ratio is a bit off for a low-carb, high-fat diet? I’ve seen much better keto snacks in my 7 years of low carb living!
Let me remind you that keto isn’t just about low-carb foods, but it’s more of low-carb AND high-fat foods!
Can You Have Quest Chips on Keto?
Quest protein chips are not the worst Keto snack option you’ve got! But there are tons of low carb snacks available today in the market with as few as 1g net carbs!
Heck, Pork Rinds don’t even have a single net carb!
If you are really craving some flavor-packed tortillas on the keto diet, you can enjoy Quest Protein chips in moderation. I recommend you don’t have more than half a bag in one serving which gives you just 2g of net carbs.
Whenever I judge the keto-friendliness of a food item, I always consider how easy it will be to overeat and overindulge in it! If you look at Quest’s Keto cookies, they are quite filling and you are much less likely to binge-eat.
But what about their chips?
Any kind of chips, whether it’s tortilla or potato chips, are very likely to be overeaten!
Just take yourself to those days of binge-watching and binge-eating. We are all guilty of spending hours and hours enjoying our favorite sitcom with a bag of potato chips!
Even if you’re on a healthy diet now, chips can easily bring out the hungry bear in you and lead you to overindulgence!
So go for Quest chips only if you’re confident that you can eat half a pack and keep the other half aside for good!
Do Quest Keto Chips Have Hidden Carbs?
Before we talk about hidden carbs on keto, let me explain how net carbs are calculated.
Here’s an example for your easy understanding:
As you can very well see, we subtract the total fiber from the number of total carbs to determine the net carbs in any food item.
However, there are two types of fiber! One is soluble fiber and the other is insoluble fiber.
The only fiber that does not have any impact on the keto diet is insoluble fiber. It goes undigested by your body and can’t affect your blood sugar or ketosis level.
But the majority of people believe that both types of fiber are keto-safe and hence they subtract it from the total carbs!
Let me tell you that marketers are no different! The hidden source of carbs in many food products is the soluble dietary fiber present inside.
So the corrected formula for total net carbs should be:
Total Carbohydrates – Insoluble fiber = Net Carbs
There are so many people who have the wrong idea about net carbs and they end up being kicked out of ketosis!
You might have also encountered some products that have misleading net carbs on their label. They do not consider the carbs from soluble fiber which actually DO impact your ketosis!
Whether they do it by mistake or it’s intentional, is a controversial topic for some other time!
Getting back to Quest protein chips, they do have “soluble corn fiber” mentioned in their ingredients, but it’s not significant enough to have an impact!
Thankfully, there are no hidden carbs in Quest keto chips!
Quest Protein Chips Variants
It’s quite amazing that Quest Chips now have a huge range of 8 different flavors of their protein chips!
It means you are never going to run out of variety!
Here are the different flavors along with their macros:
- Spicy Sweet Chili: 19g Protein, 4g Net Carbs, 1g Sugar, 1g Fiber
- BBQ: 19g Protein, 4g Net Carbs, 1g Sugar, 1g Fiber
- Cheddar Sour & Cream: 19g Protein, 4g Net Carbs, 1g Sugar, 1g Fiber
- Chili Lime: 20g Protein, 3g Net Carbs, 0g Sugar, 1g Fiber (Lowest in carbs)
- Loaded Taco: 19g Protein, 4g Net Carbs, 1g Sugar, 1g Fiber
- Nacho Cheese: 18g Protein, 4g Net Carbs, 1g Sugar, 1g Fiber
- Ranch: 19g Protein, 4g Net Carbs, 1g Sugar, 1g Fiber
- Sour Cream & Onion: 19g Protein, 4g Net Carbs, 1g Sugar, 1g Fiber
Chili Lime has the maximum protein and minimum net carbs out of all the flavors! It is essentially the most keto-friendly option and does not even contain any sugar!
You can either buy a 12-Pack of these for $24.99 or buy a 4 Pack x 4 Oz bag for $29.99.
Since they can easily be ordered online with the click of a button, I highly recommend you stock LESS!
Trust me, chips are one of the most easily overeaten snacks!
[MORE: Is Quest Pizza Keto?]Reviewing Quest Chips on a Low Carb Diet
How about I fill up a junk food with lots of protein and get rid of empty carbs?
Sounds amazing right? Yes, I’m talking about Quest’s protein chips!
Quest chips are quite crispy and bring a fresh texture to our otherwise routine keto diet filled with super soft-chewy foods!
They have upgraded their recipe with the launch of Chips 2.0! It is much more crunchier and has more protein than the previous ones.
In fact I even noticed more seasoning on the new chips, something I always complained about in the older version!
If you’re on a ketogenic diet and craving something crisp, these chips are perfect for the occasion (in moderation, of course)!
Sour cream and cheddar is my favorite out of all the eight flavors. They feel just like real chips but without the real carbs, lol!
Flavors that I highly recommend: Sour cream and cheddar, Taco, Nacho Cheese, Chili Lime
Not so good in taste: BBQ Style
Quest chips are priced roughly at 2 bucks per packet, which is kinda expensive! But considering that you can only eat half a pack at once, they could be a part of your snacks stack!
Pork rinds is another great option for satisfying those crispy cravings! However, most brands use unhealthy vegetable oils while frying them. But if you can find the right brand, just go for it!
The carb-to-fat ratio in pork rinds is excellent for a keto diet!
It’s difficult to find good healthy snacks with sufficient amount of proteins as well! These chips aren’t just good for ketoers but also great for other people in your family.
While most chips are loaded with artificial preservatives and empty carbs, this one comes as a game changer with an excellent macro profile!
I really enjoy the quality of Quest’s snacks and I feel they should also launch some high-fat products for us ketoers! Snacks like keto beef jerky would be an instant hit!
I think they should also consider keto-friendly beverages like Bai keto drinks or Zevia low carb drinks.
Other Low Carb Snacks for Keto
Keto diet can be a lonely affair when it comes to food options!
It’s difficult to add varieties to your daily diet plan and we often find ourselves stuck in a rut! This is when keto snacks like low carb cookies, low carb tacos, etc come to our rescue!
In fact, quest chips are one of the snacks that restore my normalcy on the keto diet as I can relate them with old-school potato chips.
Here are a few more keto-friendly options for the times when you miss that crunch of potato chips!
FBOMB Cheese Crisps
FBOMB cheese crisps are baked and healthy low carb snacks that fit perfectly in the keto diet!
As their name suggests, FBOMB is actually a fat bomb snack that has a very high fat-to-carbs ratio.
Keto Krunch by FBOMB is a range of high-fat cheese crisps that are naturally made with no preservatives at all! Their founders are also the practitioners of lchf diet.
They were sick of the limited options available in the market and decided to innovate!
These crisps are gluten-free, vegetarian, and keto-friendly as well!
They come in resealable bags which is quite a plus for an on-commute snack! You can also enjoy it while travelling.
I think these cheese crisps are the perfect on-the-go snacks as they can be used on numerous occasions ranging from road trips to backpacking adventures.
One packet of Keto Krunch Cheese Crisps has a whopping 9g of protein with just 1g of net carbs. The protein-to-carb ratio is much better than Quest keto chips!
These crisps taste exactly like the scorched cheese that falls off from the cheesy bread during baking. I can’t think of a better example to explain it’s the taste!
They can be a great addition to your keto salads. In fact, I even take them along with me in restaurants so that I am not tempted to cheat with junk food!
For example, I replaced the croutons in a Chipotle low carb salad with these cheese crisps for a completely satisfying meal.
Fat Snax Almond Flour Crackers
Other than pork rinds and cheese crisps, there are many more keto-friendly snacks with that same crispy and crunchy texture!
Fat Snax offers crispy almond flour crackers that have 11g of fats and 3g of net carbs per serving. (each serving has 17 crackers)
They are made with a blend of almond flour and coconut flour, both of which are keto-friendly ingredients.
Finally we have a brand that caters exclusively to us keto-ers bringing us high-fat and low-carb munchies!
Otherwise, the whole health space simply focuses on low-carb low-fat snacks, and I’m sick of them!
The USP of these almond flour crackers is their solid and crisp texture. I was sick of flaxseed crackers that are so crumbly that they simply dissolve in your mouth as you take a bite!
These ones are quite sturdy even in thick and heavy dips. They do feel almost like real crackers without a cardboard-ish taste!
Conclusion
Are Quest Protein Chips Keto?
Quest chips are keto-friendly and you can consume half a packet in one serving. It will give you 2g of net carbs and satisfy those crunchy cravings!
You’ll also get 9g of protein to supplement your keto diet. Pricing might be an issue as one bag of chips costs you 2 bucks. Overall they can be a great keto snack and their tortilla-style crisps are the closest to potato chips.