Chips and lemonade

I posted this on my old old blog ages ago but was having a craving for S&V chips again today, so here 'tis again...



Why are there so many additives in simple foods? Today I had a major craving for salt and vinegar chips so went to the supermarket in the hope that they'd have at least one brand that didn't contain MSG. Nope! Grrr.

Here is the list of ingredients in Smiths salt and vinegar flavoured chips:



Recipe for semi-homemade salt and vinegar chips
Easy enough for kids and highly kitchen-challenged adults.

1. Take one 200-250g bag of plain potato chips. Most brands of plain/original chips contain only potato, oil and salt but check before you buy because some companies sneak in extra stuff.

2. Open the bag at one end and sprinkle in 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of citric acid crystals (available at most supermarkets and health food stores).

3. Seal up the bag with a rubber band or a clothes peg and shake it for a while, but not so hard that you break the chips.

4. Open it back up and enjoy your homemade and less toxic than usual S&V chippies.

And just because I'm on a roll, here is the list of ingredients in Sprite.



To be fair there are a couple of brands of lemonade that don't contain preservatives, but my family likes the homemade stuff below.

Recipe for homemade lemonless lemonade
Also very easy but uses very hot water so kiddies must be closely supervised when making this.

1. Find a heat-proof jug or bowl

2. Add 1 cup of white or caster sugar, and 1 cup of very hot (just boiled) water.

3. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

4. Add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of citric acid crystals and stir until they dissolve.

5. Place the mixture in the fridge to cool. This is your lemonade cordial, so when it is cool you can transfer it to some sort of bottle for easy pouring.

6. Add about a cordialish amount of the lemonade cordial to a glass then fill the remainder of the glass with soda water or fizzy mineral water.

7. Enjoy!

You can alter the amount of citric acid in your cordial if you like your lemonade more or less acidic.

I think I originally found these recipes in the FAILSAFE Cookbook by Sue Dengate. Sue has lots of great tips on her website Fed Up With Food Additives.