One of my colleagues thought to bring in a couple of bags of snacks after his Christmas break (you can see him in the background in this photo). He brought in a bag of Irvins Salted Egg Potato Chips (aka crisps) and
Irvins Salted Egg Fish Skin. For a couple of days both packs remained on the snack table unopened.
I think most people were too intimidated as Salted Egg wasn’t something they were necessarily use to. But my colleague insisted that it was VERY addictive (do you think that was a good idea to advertise!?)
Whilst I happily avoided the potato chip version I checked out the back of the packet of the fish skin option and noticed that it was 3.7g per serve – and a serve was 10 pieces. Thank goodness I’m keto-ing as I was able to stop at one piece and so only chalked up 0.37g of carbohydrates. Which is almost no carbs at all.
I can understand why it’s addictive as it’s fairly tasty stuff. But due to my keto state (I think I’m in ketosis even though I still don’t have my keto sticks!) I could taste the sugar in it straight away. Sure enough when I checked the back of the packet there was the word “sugar” on the list of ingredients. Doh! It’s almost as hard as reading packet when I’m cooking for my vegan friend. Sugar can come in so many disguises and this one wasn’t even in disguise! Hmfph!
I also checked out the website (irvinsaltedegg.com) and found out that each bag was ~$15! Singapore dollars (which in my head is about 1:1 to Aussie dollars) and delivery was something astronomical too. Wow it must be addictive and must have had the 1000 true fans thing that Tim Ferriss talks about!
So was it yum? Yes. Would I pay $15 a bag for it. Not if I’m keto-ing! Firstly I don’t need snacks and whilst I don’t do a strict 18:6 fast or OMAD, I do TMAD (haha is that even a thing?) or two meals a day usually lunch and dinner. The time difference is usually 8 hours as I eat lunch anywhere between noon and 2pm and then dinner at 8pm most days as I don’t get home till 7pm and need to cook.
Secondly it’s just so expensive! I’ve had the dish before at a local Chinese Restaurant (if you like salted egg stuff, the generically named “Beverly Hills Chinese Restaurant” does some amazing stuff including a lovely salted egg crab). I think it works better as a dish than the snack, but then my one piece may not have been enough of a litmus test.
Thanks to my other colleague who prompted me to review this as he knows I’ve set up this blog and is keto aware (since his gf is also keto’ing). As he mentioned this is a very very Asian snack and since I claimed it was keto-friendly I just had to try it.
So yes definitely try it if you like it it won’t knock you out of ketosis. But stop at a portion size (3.7g of carbs). They are even conveniently in a zip lock bag format.
Have you tried salted egg? What do you think? What about these types of snacks?
