What is the healthier option?

Last week we were going to buy popcorn.  OK, I admit, we do not only eat potato chips. We ended up trying to make a choice between the two healthier options shown in the picture to the right. Since we could not figure out which one to choose, we bought them both and took a closer look at the nutritional information at home.  Which one do you think is the version lowest in fat?

The top version boasts: "Light - 50% less fat than our buttery flavour popping corn"  and "whole grain goodness".

The option below: "Smartpop!" with claims of "0% trans fat" and a "health check" logo. 

Indeed, there are multiple versions of this product and though the top one (5g fat per portion) is 50% lower in fat than the "standard version" with 13g hydrogenated soybean oil, the "Smartpop" version cuts out more than another 50% of the fat: 2g fat/portion. Instead of hydrogenated soybean oil both "light" and "smart" version contain fractionated palm oil.

Today I bought two more of the top "Light" version. A compromise between taste and nutritional composition.

This real life example illustrates a few things:

• Snack Manufacturers (in this case Orville Redenbacher's, Conagra) have been successfully developing healthier versions of snacks.

• For consumers, it can be hard to figure out which are the healthier, respectively the healthiest versions.

• Snacking is also about taste, so you may decide to indulge - or to compromise.