Chips & Salsa for the Intestinal Body Type (Which Chips Actually Fit — Bobby Parrish's Picks & Masa)

You asked a simple question — which chips are good for the Intestinal body type? — and the honest answer is worth sitting with before we name brands: none of them are an anchor food. In Carolyn Mein’s 25 Body Type System, the Intestinal type is the sensitive “funnel” whose whole job is taking food in and discerning what to keep. Chips are a ‘Moderately’ food for this type when you’re digesting well, and they drop to ‘Rarely’ when you’re sensitive or stressed. That’s true of every bag in the video.

So this isn’t a “great news, eat these chips” post. It’s a least-wrong post: if you’re going to have chips and salsa — and sometimes you are — here’s how the options line up for your type, which ones to reach for when you feel strong, and a fresh salsa built on the foods this body actually runs on.

First, the honest verdict: chips are a rotation food

Mein sorts every food into three tiers, and the tier describes each individual food, not the whole category:

• ‘Frequently’ (Ultra Support) — 3–7 meals a week. The foods this body runs on.
• ‘Moderately’ (Basic Support) — 1–2 meals a week. Fine in rotation, not daily.
• ‘Rarely’ (Stressful) — once a month at most. Handled poorly; keep occasional.

There are two versions of the list — a Healthy list for when you’re digesting well, and a Sensitive list for when you’re stressed or run-down. Chips land the same way on the map no matter which brand you buy:

Here’s the whole store-bought “chips and salsa” snack scored against Mein’s Intestinal Profile:

That “fine in rotation” verdict is the real headline. The base ingredients can be supportive — corn as a grain and potatoes as a vegetable are both ‘Frequently’ foods for this type on a good day — but once you fry them, process them, and add oil, the chip form lands in the rotation tier and slides to ‘Rarely’ the moment your gut is off. Buying the organic version of a ‘Moderately’ food gives you the better version of that food; it doesn’t promote it to an anchor.

How Bobby Parrish’s chips map to your type

Here’s the FlavCity grocery-aisle roundup that prompted the question — Bobby Parrish taste-testing and ranking a shelf of tortilla and potato chips by ingredient quality:

Parrish’s lens is seed oils and GMO corn — a good instinct, and it overlaps with ours in places. But his ranking isn’t your ranking. He’s grading on oil quality and clean labels; you’re matching to a body type that actually uses corn well on a good day. Those two lenses disagree in one important spot (the paleo chips), so here’s the whole lineup re-sorted for the Intestinal type.

Closest match when you’re strong: organic corn chips

• Target Good & Gather organic non-GMO corn chips
• Aldi organic corn chips (including blue corn)
• Simply Tostitos organic (expeller-pressed sunflower oil)

Corn is a grain and a vegetable this type uses well — ‘Frequently’ when healthy, sliding only when you’re sensitive. The sunflower/safflower oil in these is ‘Moderately’ on both lists, and blue corn carries its own ‘Moderately’ rating. So of everything in the video, these line up best with a corn-friendly profile. They’re still an occasional snack, not a staple — but organic/non-GMO is simply the better version of a ‘Moderately’ food.

Same rotation tier: any potato chips in the video

Potatoes themselves are ‘Frequently’ when healthy and ‘Rarely’ when sensitive, and potato chips follow the chip rating exactly: ‘Moderately’ healthy, ‘Rarely’ sensitive. Same occasional-treat status as the corn chips — pick the cleanest oil and you’re in the same lane.

Cleaner by Bobby’s standard, but off-type: the paleo chips

• Thrive Market paleo (coconut flour + avocado oil)
• Trader Joe’s paleo (avocado oil, chia + black sesame)
• Siete (cassava + coconut flour + avocado oil)

These are the ones Parrish likes most, and by his seed-oil/GMO-corn standard they’re genuinely cleaner. Avocado oil is ‘Moderately’ on both lists, and roasted sesame seeds are actually ‘Frequently’ for this type. But here’s where his ranking and yours part ways: they skip corn — the grain this body uses well when healthy — and lean on coconut flour (only ‘Moderately’ when healthy, ‘Rarely’ when sensitive) and cassava (not on Mein’s Intestinal lists at all; treat it like any other starchy chip, ‘Moderately’ at best). Fine as an occasional option, but not an upgrade over organic corn chips for this particular type. This is the spot where “clean label” and “on-type” genuinely disagree.

Avoid these

• On the Border (Walmart): GMO corn plus a canola/corn/cottonseed/soybean oil blend. Soy oil drops to ‘Rarely’ when you’re sensitive, and the cheap oil blend and GMO corn make this the weakest match in the video.
• Conventional non-organic Tostitos-style chips with the same cheap oil blends.

What about Masa chips?

Masa came up separately, and they’re worth their own section — they’re a better-than-average occasional chip for this type when you’re digesting well. Still not an anchor, but a step up from most of the video’s lineup. Here’s what’s in them:

The plain flavors (Original, Blue, White) are just three ingredients:

• organic nixtamalized corn
• grass-fed beef tallow
• sea salt

Flavored bags add Hatch chile, garlic, onion, oregano, lime, Cobanero chile, or — for the Churro — cinnamon and powdered sugar. No seed oils anywhere in the line.

How Masa maps to the Intestinal lists

The chip category still stays ‘Moderately’ healthy / ‘Rarely’ sensitive, same bucket as the video’s corn chips — the chip form isn’t ‘Frequently’ even when the base grain is. But the individual ingredients score well:

Practical ranking of Masa for this body type:

• Best when you feel good: Original, Blue, or White. Three ingredients, organic nixtamalized corn, no extra onion/chile/lime — the cleanest version of a ‘Moderately’ corn chip you’ll find.
• Fine when healthy, skip when sensitive: Hatch Chile, Cobanero, Lime.
• Least aligned: Churro (added sugar).
• When sensitive or stressed: treat every Masa bag like any other chip — ‘Rarely’.

Masa vs. the video’s chips

• Masa beats On the Border and conventional seed-oil Tostitos easily — better corn, better fat, no GMO or cheap oil blend.
• Versus the organic sunflower-oil corn chips (Target, Aldi, Simply Tostitos): Masa’s corn quality and nixtamalization are a step up; the fat is the swing. Sunflower oil is ‘Moderately’ on both lists; tallow tracks with beef (‘Moderately’ healthy / ‘Rarely’ sensitive). If you tolerate beef fat, Masa is the stronger occasional pick. If beef sits heavy for you, the organic sunflower corn chips may be gentler.
• Versus the paleo chips (Siete, TJ’s, Thrive): those skip corn for cassava/coconut + avocado oil. Since corn is a ‘Frequently’ grain for this type when healthy, Masa is more on-type than the grain-free ones — as long as you stay in the occasional-chip lane.

Still a snack, not a staple. One serving when your digestion is solid is the right use.

The best store bag for this type: Jackson’s Sweet Potato Chips

Here’s the plot twist. The best-fitting store chip we’ve found isn’t a corn chip or a potato chip at all — it’s a sweet potato chip, because sweet potato is one of this type’s true anchors (‘Frequently’ on both the Healthy and Sensitive lists). That’s a tier the corn and potato chips never reach.

Jackson’s Sea Salt Sweet Potato Chips are the pick: three ingredients — sweet potatoes, avocado oil, sea salt. It’s the bag Bobby Parrish singles out in his best potato chips roundup (cooked in avocado oil, wavy-cut) and has flagged as a “better chips” swap. For your type it lines up better than anything above:

It’s still a fried chip, so the same rule applies — a serving, not the whole bag — but the base food is genuinely on-type, which puts it a step above Masa or the corn and plantain options for a store-bought bag.

Where to find them: Costco carries the 16-oz kettle-cooked sea-salt bag — the plain, three-ingredient one you want — often at a better per-ounce price than the grocery shelf.

Two cautions:

• Buy the plain Sea Salt bag. Parrish’s own knock on Jackson’s is their flavored potato line — added “natural flavors” and yeast extract (and yeast is one of the things Mein’s weight-loss cut drops for this type). Stick to the plain sea-salt sweet potato chips.
• The purple-potato bags are a different food. Jackson’s older coconut-oil purple potato chips are still potato, not sweet potato — a fine healthy-day potato chip, but not the anchor-grade sweet-potato staple.

And the best version isn’t a bag at all: it’s homemade. Sweet potatoes are an anchor you can eat often, so baked or air-fried sweet-potato fries with butter and Spike are as on-type as this craving gets — here’s the full method.

The real issue isn’t the brand — it’s the slot chips fill

This isn’t us reading between the lines — it’s in Mein’s own profile for the type. Under the foods Intestinals crave when energy is low, she lists “salty foods, such as chips,” and she notes this type “often need[s] snacks to maintain blood sugar level.” So the chip craving is a real signal from a body asking for fuel — it’s just reaching for the wrong thing. Chips don’t do what a low-energy moment actually needs, which is steady your blood sugar. Fat plus refined starch, eaten on its own, tends to make the next crash worse, not better. What settles this type is protein alongside an anchor carb — chicken or turkey with basmati, walnuts with a rice cake, pinto beans over rice.

There’s a cuisine clue in the same profile, too: Mein names Mexican and home-style among the type’s recommended cuisines. So the pull toward chips and salsa isn’t random — it’s your type’s comfort food. The move is to aim that pull at the on-type version — pinto beans, chicken or turkey, cooked spinach or peas, basmati or a corn tortilla on a healthy day — instead of a bottomless basket of chips.

So the highest-leverage change isn’t finding a cleaner bag. It’s moving chips out of the “snack that replaces a meal” slot and back into the “condiment-sized treat, now and then” slot — and filling the everyday crunch craving with foods that are genuinely on-type.

Where a snack actually fits in the day

Mein’s meal pattern for this type gives chips a place — a small one. On a healthy day she frames breakfast as light and fruit-forward; lunch built on a grain with protein and cooked vegetables; and dinner with protein, a grain or legume, and raw vegetables if they sit well. For steady energy she points to eating about 2 oz of dense protein — chicken, turkey, eggs, or fish — with a grain like rice, five times a week: the protein-with-a-carb pattern that keeps this body’s blood sugar level.

A bag of chips fits none of those slots. It’s a between-meals snack at best — which is exactly why the fix is to pair it with protein, or to reach for a snack that carries some (walnuts, leftover pinto beans, a little turkey) when hunger hits between meals.

A better crunch-and-salt ladder

Reach down this list from the top. The upper rungs are anchors this body runs on; the bottom rung is the occasional bag:

• Everyday (anchors): rice cakes with Spike or a little butter, a handful of walnuts, leftover basmati, or roasted sweet-potato coins — all top-tier on both the Healthy and Sensitive lists.
• When you specifically want salt: dill or sweet pickles (an anchor condiment), or Spike on rice cakes.
• On healthy days, in rotation: dry-roasted unsalted cashews or peanuts (‘Frequently’ when healthy); popcorn or popcorn cakes (‘Moderately’ — a lighter step than fried chips).
• 1–2× a week, healthy days only: a serving of Jackson’s sea-salt sweet potato chips (best-fitting bag — sweet potato is an anchor), plain Masa, or organic corn chips — one, not all three, in the same week, ideally with protein (below).
• Sensitive or stressed weeks: no bag. Rice cakes, walnuts, cooked spinach, peas, sweet potato, pinto beans, and basmati only.

Scoop your fresh salsa with rice cakes or sweet-potato wedges and you’ve turned a rotation snack into an on-type one.

If you want a chip night, aim it. Pair a small bag with turkey or chicken and some cooked spinach or peas, so the plate isn’t fat-and-starch alone. Adding protein and a cooked vegetable does more for how you feel afterward than switching brands ever will.

The salsa: make the part you can control a strong fit

Store-bought salsa is a ‘Moderately’ condiment that drops to ‘Rarely’ when you’re sensitive — the same rotation tier as the chips, often with added sugar and cheap oils along for the ride. The fix is to make the dip fresh and build it on the foods this type handles best. Here’s the same salsa scored against the Intestinal Profile:

That’s the point worth holding onto: the chip is ‘fine in rotation,’ but the salsa can be a strong fit. It’s anchored by Spike (top-tier on both lists), carried by garlic and brown onion (‘Frequently’ on a good day — and brown is the one onion that doesn’t crash to ‘Rarely’ under stress), and it uses roasted tomatoes on purpose, because cooked tomatoes hold ‘Moderately’ where raw tomatoes slide. Make the salsa the star and let the chip be the occasional spoon.

The practical rule

When you feel good and are digesting well, the least-wrong bag is Jackson’s sea-salt sweet potato chips — the one store chip whose base food is actually an anchor for you — with organic corn chips or plain Masa close behind, paired with a fresh salsa built on garlic, brown onion, and Spike. Better still, make sweet-potato fries at home, where the anchor food isn’t wrapped in a fried, salted chip.

When you’re sensitive, stressed, or not digesting well, skip chips entirely and stay on the anchors: rice cakes, walnuts, sweet potatoes, basmati rice, pinto beans, cooked spinach, peas. And let your own digestion have the last word — if a ‘Moderately’ chip sits poorly, treat it as ‘Rarely’ for you.

In a weight-loss phase, chips get rarer still. Mein’s cut for this type leans harder on protein and vegetables and pulls the carbs back — corn, dried fruit, and many nuts and seeds included — so a chip becomes a genuine once-in-a-while treat, not a weekly one. (We flag the same phase in our steel-cut oats post.)

An honest word on the framework

The 25 Body Type System is Carolyn Mein’s model, not mainstream nutrition — we offer it as a lens some of you find genuinely useful, and we’ve matched every chip and every salsa ingredient here against her Intestinal food lists rather than hand-waving. What isn’t in question is the plain read on chips: they’re a fried, processed snack that even a supportive base grain can’t lift out of the rotation tier. Enjoy them when you’re strong, make the salsa the healthiest part of the plate, and rotate back to the anchors whenever your gut asks you to.

Simplify, create, and live with God in your heart.

Fresh Roasted Salsa for the Intestinal Body Type

Barefoot Betters

Fresh Roasted Salsa for the Intestinal Body Type

A quick charred-tomato salsa built on the Intestinal type's better-tolerated foods: roasted tomatoes and brown onion, garlic, cilantro, and lime, seasoned with Spike—the type's anchor condiment. The dip you control, to pair with the chips you buy.

🖨 Print👨‍🍳 Cook Mode⏲ TimerIngredientsMethod

Prep10 min

Cook12 min

Total22 min

• Servings −2+ cups (about eight ¼-cup servings)
• Course Snack
• Cuisine Tex-Mex

Ingredients

Char under the broiler

• 1½ lb Roma tomatoes — cored and halved; cherry or grape tomatoes work too
• 1 medium brown onion — peeled and quartered — brown is the onion this type holds best
• 4 cloves garlic — unpeeled; peel after charring
• 1–2 each jalapeño or serrano chile — optional heat; stem removed (halve and seed for milder)

Blend in

• ½ cup fresh cilantro — leaves and tender stems, lightly packed
• 1–2 tbsp lime juice — to taste
• ½ tsp sea salt — plus more to taste
• ½ tsp Spike seasoning — the type's anchor condiment; adds savory depth without junk

Equipment

• Sheet pan and a broiler (or a cast-iron comal/skillet)
• Blender or food processor
• Tongs

Method

Char

1. Broil the vegetables. Set an oven rack about 6 inches under the broiler and heat it to high. Spread the tomatoes (cut side up), quartered brown onion, unpeeled garlic, and chile on a sheet pan. Broil 8–12 minutes, turning once, until everything is blistered and charred in spots — pull the garlic earlier if it darkens fast.
   Tip: No broiler? Char everything in a dry cast-iron skillet or on a comal over medium-high heat, turning until blackened in patches. That char is where roasted salsa gets its flavor.
2. Peel the garlic. Once the garlic is cool enough to handle, squeeze the soft cloves out of their skins. Discard the chile stem (and seeds, if you seeded it).

Blend

1. Pulse to your texture. Add the charred tomatoes and their juices, onion, garlic, and chile to a blender or food processor with the cilantro, lime juice, sea salt, and Spike. Pulse to a chunky salsa — or blend longer for a smooth restaurant-style dip.
2. Taste and rest. Adjust salt and lime. Let it sit 10 minutes so the flavors marry; it tastes even better the next day. Serve with the chips below, or spoon it over eggs, beans, or basmati rice.

Notes

• Why this salsa fits the type. It leans on the foods the Intestinal type handles best: garlic and brown onion are ‘Frequently’ on a good day (brown is the one onion that doesn’t crash to ‘Rarely’ under stress — yellow, red, and white do), and Spike is a true anchor condiment that holds top-tier on both the Healthy and Sensitive lists. Roasting the tomatoes matters — cooked/canned tomatoes hold ‘Moderately’ on both lists, while raw tomatoes slide to ‘Rarely’ when you’re sensitive. That’s the whole reason this is a charred salsa, not a pico.
• The chile is the one that slides. Chili peppers are ‘Moderately’ when you’re strong but drop to ‘Rarely’ under stress — so keep it optional and go light on a depleted day. The salsa is still bright with just tomato, garlic, brown onion, lime, and cilantro.
• Fresh beats the jar. Store-bought salsa is a ‘Moderately’ condiment that drops to ‘Rarely’ when you’re sensitive — the same rotation tier as the chips. Making it fresh lets you build it on the anchor-leaning foods above and skip the added sugar and cheap oils that ride along in many jars.

Keywords: roasted salsa, intestinal body type salsa, charred tomato salsa, brown onion salsa, Spike seasoning salsa, chips and salsa

More from the Barefoot Betters kitchen:

• Sweet-Potato Fries & Chips for the Intestinal Body Type — the on-type payoff: an anchor food, three ways
• The Intestinal Body-Type Food Guide — the full Healthy vs. Sensitive crosswalk behind every rating above
• The Intestinal Body Type: A Daily Joy Blend for the Sensitive Soul — meet the type this guide is built for
• Steel-Cut Oats for the Intestinal Body Type — the same honest, tier-by-tier treatment for breakfast
• L. reuteri Salsa — a fermented, probiotic take on salsa