I have a bit of a thing for popchips – I first heard about them on the Jillian Michael’s podcast, as she’s an investor in the company, and as you know, I love me some Jillian. So I was eager to try them out, and boy, did they live up to the hype.

I got an email through from popchips recently about research they did about snacking at work, that used the term ‘snackered’ to describe the British workforce – the word combining ‘knackered’ with ‘snack’ to refer to someone who is both tired and in need of a little sustenance to restore their soul. I don’t know if they coined this term, but I like it, and I’m adding it in to the very important diet-related word ‘hangry’ – when you’re so hungry, you get angry because you’re on a diet and you’re not ‘allowed’ to eat anything. Well, popchips are under 100 calories a bag, so whether you’re hangry or snackered, I’m fairly sure you can fit this into your calorie allowance!

Most diet plans will have an allowance for snack food – sometimes twice a day – and that fits into popchips’ research that workers reach for snacks at 11.30am and 3pm daily. Plus, apparently, 1 in 10 workers of the 2000 they surveyed admitted to taking a day off with a faked illness when they ran out of energy in the afternoon, while 6% said they take their snacks into the toilet to eat in secret! Not sure what’s going on there, but I don’t think you’d have a reason to hide your bag of popchips at the office – unless you were scared of your co-workers stealing them! I have to say, in the case of bunking off work because of low energy levels, I don’t think a bag of popchips can really solve that problem (sometimes, a sickie is just a sickie), but it will console you to snack on them during your commute home as you contemplate a half duvet day…

popchips are definitely one of those snacks that it’s worth having around the house (and office!) for when you get an attack of the munchies – because they’re not fried, but rather popped like popcorn, they’re healthier for you than regular potato crisps. I wouldn’t say they’re an alternative to crisps, because it does them a disservice to compare the two – they’re really a unique product all on their own, and the process of manufacturing them is totally different to the way crisps are made (here’s a fact – the chips aren’t made from slices of potato, but rather small kernels of potato that are popped just like popcorn!). Who would have thought that there were more ways to cook a potato in the year 2013!

Visit popchips at www.popchips.co.uk to find out more, including stockist information.

My thanks to popchips for providing me with the delicious snacks mentioned above!