Chips are a popular snack that many Americans consume on a daily basis. We all know that they are not very healthy, but nevertheless we continue to enjoy them. Often, though, people never take the time to stop and think about how chips are made. What's inside a French fry? Where do the ingredients come from? Do French fries harm the environment? To understand the issues surrounding the production and processing of French fries, you must first have a basic understanding of how they are produced. Chips start out as most people would imagine, as potatoes. Raw potatoes are grown on farms and shipped by truck or rail to the processing plant. Once the potatoes arrive at the facility, they are sent to the potato peeler, "a long cylinder with rollers that go around and peel the skin off the potato" (How Potato Chips Are Made). The potatoes then come out of the peeler where they are passed past human inspectors who will look for bad potatoes and remove them. The potatoes then continue into the slicer where they pass one by one through the machine to be cut into 1/20 inch thick wafers (How Potato Chips Are Made). The thin slices then continue into the fryer. The fryer is a shallow pan filled with oil that flows from side to side; it is the current that pushes the fried slices to the other side. When the chips come out of the fryer they are salted and inspected again. The chips are then poured into bags, sealed and shipped to consumers across the country (How Potato Chips Are Made). From this rudimentary description of the production of chips, it can be seen that the main ingredients include potatoes, oil and some ingredients. salt. However, what may not be so obvious are the “non-ingredient” inputs… half the paper… scale potato chip manufacturing operations are designed to be economical, to make money, not to benefit their consumers or protect the environment. Only when regulation is imposed (such as those from the EPA or FDA) are processes and procedures adjusted. Perhaps in the future, as technology advances, large chip manufacturers will integrate better ways to dispose of their byproducts and create healthier chips at the same time. Michigan State. Michigan Department of Agriculture, May 10, 2007. Web. February 12, 2010. .Meizys, Dennis. "More reasons to avoid French fries." Web log post. HealthForwardOnline. Network. February 11. 2010. .