Product Review: Michael Season’s Baked Multigrain chips- 3 flavors (gluten free)

Posted on | March 1, 2009 | 9 Comments

Yumm, I think these are the gluten free equivalent of Sun Chips! Not only are they shaped like sun chips, but the flavors are fabulous. My family is addicted to these tasty gluten free multigrain chips from Michael Seasons. Right now they are on sale on their website for $1.99.

Michael Season’s MultiGrain chips comes in three flavors: original, cheddar and honey chipotle. These chips are light and crispy, and since they are baked there is no greasy residue on fingers and plates. Each serving provides 12 grams of whole grains, 110 calories, 4 g. of fat, 3 g. of fiber and 2g of protein. What’s also nice: no hydrogenated oils, no preservatives, no artificial colors or flavors.

I enjoyed these chips with sandwiches, with soup, and for snacking. I loved that they were light and didn’t leave me with a heavy feeling in my stomach. The flavors are robust and balanced.

Here’s the break down on the flavors:

Original Flavor: mild and salty, the most subtle of the three flavors, pairs well with anything.

Ingredients: whole grain corn meal, rice meal, sunflower oil and/or corn oil, oat meal, oat fiber, sugar, modified corn starch, black bean powder. ground sunflower seeds, salt

Cheddar Flavor: No fake cheese flavor here! These chips are coated with a coating that is made from actual cheddar cheese, and it tastes like real cheese. The flavor is rich but not overpowering and my kids couldn’t keep their hands out of the bag.

Ingredients: whole grain corn meal, rice meal, sunflower oil and/ or corn oil, oat meal, oat fiber, sugar, modifoed corn starch, black vean powder, ground sunflower seeds, rice flour, salt, cheddar cheese (pastsurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes,) dextrose, whey, matodextrin, yeast extract, garlic powder, buttermilk, butter (cream, salt), citric acid, paprike extract, disodium phosphate, natural flavors, spice, lactic acid, sunflower oil, onion extractative)

Honey Chipotle Flavor: Holy Smokes, these chips have a serious KICK! To my sensitive palate, I had tears in my eyes and a burning in my throat, but in a good way. At first you taste a hint of sweetness, then the spice kicks in. the flavor from the chipotle and smoke is incredibly yummy, and even though I was gulping my water like crazy, I couldn’t stop eating them.

Ingredients: whole grain corn meal, rice meal, sunflower oil and/or corn oil, oat meal, oat fiber, sugar, modofoed corn stacrh, black bean powder, ground sunflower seeds, rice flour, maltodectrin, salt, dextrose, dry honey, onion powder, red pepper powder, chipotle pepper powder, garlic powder, natural hickory smoke flavor, citric acid, natural flavor, annato extract

Overall, I love these light and crunchy chips. not only do they taste good, but I like that I get all the flavor with less fat and sodium

Pros: light, crispy, flavorful, healthier option when compared to traditional chips, great price!

Cons: Can’t think of any!

Rating: 5 stars

Give ‘em a try! Click HERE to visit Michael Season’s site for ordering information

*****Edited to add*****

Please click HERE to see the gluten testing results from ABC Research Corp for this product. Some of my careful readers expressed the concern that the oat flour was not gluten free. I hope this link and visiting their site helps alleviate some concerns.

Comments

9 Responses to “Product Review: Michael Season’s Baked Multigrain chips- 3 flavors (gluten free)”

Cara Goedecke
March 2nd, 2009 @ 12:19 pm

How can these be gluten free with regular oat four in them?
gfe--gluten free easily
March 2nd, 2009 @ 1:49 pm

Cara raises a good point. I’ll be interested if you have additional info. I did look on their site and it shows the Baked Multigrain Chips as Wheat and Gluten Free, and, of couurse, it says so right on the bag, too. The others don’t note that. Hmmm. ? I’d really like these chips to be safe because my son has really missed Sunchips and would lov a GF version.

However, another chip I really like is Food Should Taste Good chips. http://www.foodshouldtastegood.com/#/home/ They have several varieties and all are gluten free. They only make GF items. They contain oat fiber, but are all certified gluten free by the Gluten Intolerance Group’s certification organization. They address the oat fiber question here: http://www.foodshouldtastegood.com/#/FAQ/

Hope that’s helpful. I forgot to check if you’ve reviewed Food Should Taste Good chips yet. They are really good. The chocolate ones are really a nice surprise. A little taste of chocolate, but not too sweet and the nice crunch to go with it. The company is great to work with, too. I lead a celiac/gluten intolerance support group and they sent us three cases of complimentary chips to try out. We were thrilled.

Shirley
Taca
March 2nd, 2009 @ 3:50 pm

Hi
They sound delicious but I have the same question as Cara, what with the oat meal/flour? Is it certified GF oats?
Karen
March 2nd, 2009 @ 4:08 pm

I added a link at the bottom of my post so you can see the test results from ABC Research Corp. for gluten in their products.

From my understanding, “regular” oats are usually contaminated during harvest and processing, thus the gluten, but pure oats are now considered gluten free. Oat flour may be produced in this way and still safely be used in gluten free products.

I am ultra sensitive to gluten ( boo!) and I tested all the products with no reaction. Of course, the decision is up to you if you want to try them or not.
Cara Goedecke
March 2nd, 2009 @ 5:50 pm

This was a reply I received from the company:

I understand that you are inquiring about our Michael Season’s Multigrain
Chips, specifically the Oat ingredient… For various reasons the supplier
of the Oats will not certified the Oats to be Gluten Free. This does not
mean that this product is not Gluten Free only that there is a remote
possibility of cross-contamination. The only thing that I can state, from
the supplier of the oats down to our plant there are specific procedures put
into place to help prevent cross-contamination of any kind and that during
the many years that we have been in business I am not aware that we have
experienced an issues with gluten contamination.

We do have an independent lab that performs testing on our entire Gluten
Free products as an added measure to help insure that the
product/ingredients that are used in our production are Gluten Free and are
free of any cross-contamination. We have this lab conduct these tests every
4-6 months.

However, there is a question as to whether oats are safe to consume for all
celiac individuals but for one reason or another they have not yet been able
to come to a conclusion regarding oats.

If you are a celiac individual we can only reiterate that you should always
be cautious in consuming any food product even if the product states that it
is “Gluten Free”, due to the fact that it appears that some individuals are
more susceptible to adverse reactions with oats then other individuals, so
unless you know that you are not susceptible to these reactions and even if
you do know that you are not I would still be very cautious in consuming
anything that has oats.

Individual body chemistry changes from one period of time to another.. you
may not have a problem consuming oats now but later in life your body
changes and you could experience a problem in the future, nothing is
absolute.

I hope that this information helps you in determining what you need to do
for yourself and hopefully you will be able to enjoy our products. If you
would like us to send you a sample to test it out we would be more than
happy to do so, just let me know.

Susana Sanchez
Office Assistant/ Consumer Relations

Natural Snacks, LLC.
1790 W Cortland Court Ste B
Addison, IL 60101
T 630-628-0211
F 630-628-0385

http://www.naturalsnacks.com
Karen
March 2nd, 2009 @ 6:43 pm

Hey Cara, thanks for that.

I don’t want this to turn into a debate whether oats are safe for gluten free diets, because even though pure uncontaminated oats have been show to not raise IgA levels in celiacs, some may be sensitive to the oats themselves, just like one may also be sensitive to soy, dairy, corn etc.

As indicated in my attached link, if you are concerned about gluten, please refer to their product testing results, which are performed once a quarter by an independent research lab. They indicated that their products are free from gluten, some of the results being posted as early as last month. I Hope this helps.

I know I am thankful for my gluten free oats- my apple crisp wouldn’t be the same without them!
Cara Goedecke
March 3rd, 2009 @ 12:04 pm

I love my gluten free oats, just wanted to post the info I received to hopefully help clarify the company’s position. Thanks for the link, that helped a lot too! Love all your product updates!
Karen
March 3rd, 2009 @ 6:56 pm

Shirley, thanks for the head up re: the Food Should taste Good brand. I’ll keep my eyes open for them!

Cara I also emailed my contact re: this product and the response you got from via your email, so to help consumers understand what they are eating and not get mixed messages. I love that you were proactive in emailing, it helps companies be more aware of how serious the label “gluten free” needs to be!
Lori Marinaccio
February 19th, 2010 @ 9:51 pm

Thank-you for returning my email. I am always very satisfied with Michael Season’s potato chips and other products,that’s why I was very surprised that the lightly salted bags I had purchased last month were so salty we couldn’t eat them. I wanted to make you aware in case there was a problem. Since then I purchased additional lightly salted bags and they were delicious. I was unaware there were no salt products and I would be willing to try them. I have also ordered from Michael Season’s online and have sampled many products to which I was very satisfied. Thanks again! Lori Marinaccio
144 Lackawanna Ave.
Sloan,NY 14212