I love me some avocado! So obviously I was ecstatic when foods were created using avocado oil instead of the disgusting seed oils (read more about my position on seed oils here!).
Potato chips suck up oil like a sponge. The final product is usually 30–40% fat by weight. That means 8–11 grams of pure frying fat per one-ounce serving, whether the bag screams “avocado oil” or just “vegetable oil (and/or whatever is cheapest this week).”
Boulder Canyon’s classic sea salt version clocks in at 9g fat (mostly monounsaturated on the label). Jackson’s, Kettle Brand avocado lines, the works—same ballpark. The number is not magic. It is just how much oil the potato decided to keep after the fryer.
Avocado oil should be the upgrade: high smoke point, heavy on oleic acid, less of the inflammatory omega-6 circus that seed oils bring to the party. On paper it looks cleaner. In practice a July 2026 UC Davis study checked 54 products that listed avocado oil as the only oil. 89% were adulterated. Chips specifically 93% failed the chemical fingerprint test. Fatty acids and sterols did not match real avocado oil. Cheaper oils (soybean, canola, the usual suspects) were riding shotgun or driving the whole thing.
Boulder Canyon, Jackson’s, Siete, Kettle Brand avocado versions, Good Health, Sprouts—multiple brands flunked. A couple of samples from Lesser Evil and Simply Tostitos scraped by on one lot and failed the next. Nobody’s chip brand went two-for-two clean. Meanwhile, olive oil products mostly passed the same tests. Avocado oil is expensive. The incentive to dilute it is obvious. The supply chain apparently has no accountability.
So when the bag says “made with avocado oil” or “100% avocado oil,” treat it like a dating-app bio: optimistic at best, full of it at worst. You are still eating a calorie bomb of fried starch. The fat profile might be better if the oil is real. Most of the time it is not. You are paying the premium for the green-washed label while the actual oil composition is closer to the cheap stuff you were trying to avoid.
Want actual control? Make your own with a bottle of avocado oil that does not come from a random bulk supplier, or switch to brands frying in tallow, coconut, or verified olive oil. Or just accept that chips are a vice and stop pretending the oil type turns them into a wellness product. The study did not invent the problem—it just held up the receipt.
Kat’s Musings 