4 Easy Steps for Healthy Salsa!

One of my biggest vices is probably corn chips. I love them. I love their salty corn goodness. What I don't love, however, is the fatty, carb-filled relative nutritionlessness that comes with every bite.

Sure, I dig all the great substitutes out there. Baked chips cut down the fat content, and the latest trend, corn chips flecked with flaxseed, adds omega fatty acids and fiber to my diet. These options are great, but ultimately, nothing can truly replace my greasy, little, yellow, triangular friends.

So I scoured the four corners of my brain searching for a way that I could enjoy corn chips without dealing with the guilt that comes with eating them. And I think I've found the solution: it's all in the salsa that you eat with them. Not just the ingredients in the salsa, mind you, but the creation of the salsa, from the dirt the ingredients grow in to the way I get them from the store to the way I chop them up.

Now I'm sharing the secret with you. Healthy salsa will make your corn chips healthier to eat.

Step 1: What you'll need

A bag of your favorite corn chips
Three tomatoes
One small yellow onion
A handful of cilantro
One lime
One hot chili pepper (optional)
Salt
One bike or a good pair of walking shoes
One good, sharp knife
Some free time

Step 2: Hunting and gathering

First, you'll need to collect your tomatoes, cilantro, chili, chips, and onions. This is where the good pair of walking shoes or bike comes in. Whether you shop at your local farmers' market or your local Safeway, getting there using your own propulsion is key from a calorie perspective. A brisk, 30-minute, four-mile-per-hour walk to the store and a 30-minute walk back home will burn you somewhere between 250 and 400 calories, depending on your size. A twelve-mile-per-hour bike ride to the store, 15 minutes each way, will burn you somewhere between 250 and 350 calories.

If you have a local farmers' market, this will be your best option, because it's easy to find locally grown and organic produce there. Besides the obvious "green" benefits, buying organic assures you more nutrition bang for your buck. A 2007 European Union study out of Newcastle University in England showed that organic fruits and veggies contain 40 percent more antioxidants than their non-organic counterparts. Buying local also helps guarantee that your salsa will be better for you because older fruits and veggies lose nutrients. For example, spinach retains only 53 percent of its folate and 54 percent of its carotene after eight days in the fridge. Imagine what it loses traveling around the world in trucks and boats!

As for your chips, don't worry about nutrition here. Buy your favorites. And given that most farmers' markets don't carry corn chips, that means two trips—one to the grocery store and one to the farmers' market. All the better for you!

Step 3: Bringing it all together

Salsa is pretty easy to make. Just chop everything up and mix it together.

Wait, wait, wait! What do you think you're doing? Put that food processor away! Instead, get out the knife and cutting block. We're going to burn some calories while we're slicing and dicing. It's going to take about 20 or 30 minutes to chop all this stuff up, which will burn you about 100 calories. Of course, the ingredients in salsa are among the most difficult to chop. Here are a few hints.

Tomatoes. If you have a really sharp knife, tomatoes aren't an issue; otherwise, the tough skin of a tomato can turn chopping them into a gooey mess. The trick is to cut your tomato in half, and then do the rest of the cutting from the inside out. That way, you don't need to deal with the skin.

Onions. People don't cry when they cut onions because they're sad. They cry because onions squirt out a volatile gas called syn-propanethial-S-oxide. The gas reacts with the water in your eyes, creating sulfuric acid and, well, boo-hoo.

There are a million tricks to prevent this, from using a sharp knife to burning a candle to attract the gas, but there's only one surefire way to avoid the tears. Wear airtight goggles, such as swimming or diving goggles. Yes, you'll look like a buffoon, but you won't cry. Just ask yourself which matters more.

Chilies. If you're going the super-spicy route, make sure to get rid of the seeds. The flesh of a spicy chili is filled with delicious zing. The seeds just hurt your mouth. Many people also use rubber gloves when chopping hot chilies. Anyone who has ever gotten chili juice into a paper cut knows that it makes lemon juice feel like a soothing balm.

Once you're done chopping the tomatoes, onions, and chili, combine these three ingredients in a bowl. Remove the stems from the cilantro, chop up the leaves, and add them to the other ingredients. Next, squeeze the lime in and add a couple dashes of salt. Refrigerate the salsa for at least an hour to allow the flavors to mingle. If you can wait overnight, the flavors will be blended even better.

Step 4: The fun part

Okay, I'm going to pull a fast one on you here. I didn't mention this before, but you'll need to limit your corn chip consumption to one serving, about 18 chips, which works out to about 160 calories. But don't get too bent out of shape. If you pile on that healthy salsa you just made, you should get full.

Generally, the whole exercise-extra-so-you-can-eat-junk formula doesn't work, but we're not talking about a 600-calorie mud pie here. You'd have to seriously overtrain and cut into recovery time to work off 600 calories. Furthermore, you're piling each chip with a mound of nutritious fruits and veggies that further dilutes the sinfulness of the snack. Just get a load of the nutrition facts.

Suggested serving size: one third of salsa recipe (not counting chips)

Calories: 43
Fat Total: 0 g
Carbs: 10 g
Fiber: 2 g
Protein: 2 g

Plus, it's loaded with vitamins B6 and C as well as folate, copper, manganese, and thiamin.

And remember, you don't need to eat those chips to enjoy this salsa. It'll work as a great dip or spread for just about anything. Enjoy!