The 'Nearly Inedible' Corn Chips Some Kroger Shoppers Can't Stand

Crispy, crunchy, perfectly salted, with the naturally sweet flavor of real corn –– the ideal corn chip is the perfect vessel for dipping into creamy guacamole or zingy salsa. (It also happens to be a great way to deduce the quality of a Mexican restaurant.) However, if you're shopping at Kroger, according to some customer reviews, you'll want to stay away from the Original White Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips.

Unfortunately, multiple customers describe them as awful, with one writing that they're "nearly inedible without dusting the salt off of them." Another customer echoed the sentiment, describing the chips as "not edible, they were so salty." We're all for seasoned corn chips (like this gone-but-not-forgotten flavor of Doritos), but a bomb of overly salted corn is not what we want when we're snacking on Taco Tuesday.

Available under the store's own brand, the chips are made with 100% white corn and, according to the product description on the chain's website, "lightly salted". They're made with only a few ingredients total –– ground white corn, vegetable oil, and salt. Strangely, the actual sodium content of the recommended serving size (about seven chips) isn't egregious –– about 85 milligrams, or 4% of your daily recommended amount. (For reference, Nacho Cheese Doritos have 129.5 milligrams per seven chips). Thus, we have to assume it's something happening in the processing of the chips themselves or the quality of the ingredients used that's rendered them so unpalatable for some shoppers.

While the minimal ingredient list may have you thinking that Kroger Original White Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips would be pretty hard to mess up, many customers beg to differ. Some reviewers think the recipe or the manufacturer has changed, rendering the perfectly fine chips from before completely inedible now.

"These used to be great," wrote one unhappy customer. "Not sure what happened but now these things are thick and just taste old." The stale flavor of the chip is a recurring theme among many complainants, who also describe them as burnt, hard, and incredibly salty. (And even our hack to revive stale chips is unlikely to help.)

We don't expect tortilla chips to be a health food per se, but when the saltiness overpowers freshly made salsa or a two-ingredient queso, that's when things become a problem. Trying to shake the salt off a chip to make it passable enough to eat seems like a lot of wasted effort to us, which is why we'll have to pass on this bag during our next Kroger run.