Today I’m answering the age-old question: Should I buy these Lime & Sea Salt Tortilla Chips by Barnana?!

I’m gluten, dairy, soy, peanut, and corn-free, so trying to find awesome tortilla chips is like trying to find a porcupine in a balloon factory (difficult and a little scary), which is why I’m reviewing these Barnana tortilla chips to help out my fellow allergy-ridden friends!

This post is structured into 3 parts: Tickling My Senses (where I look at the overall sensory experience of the chips), Price, and then, finally, Should I Buy This?

Video

Oh, and if you prefer a video, be sure to check out my full review on my YouTube channel! 🙂

Tickling My Senses

In the “Tickling My Senses” portion of my review, I’m looking at not only the tortilla chip itself, but also the packaging. I consider the look, smell, taste, touch, and sound of both the chip and the bag. After all, the packaging of the product matters just as much as the product itself! 🙂

Look

• The bag: To start, the design of the bag is so fresh, organic, and cute! There is an adorable little banana over the barcode, a nod to their brand name, Barnana, as well as the central ingredient in this product, plantains…so it might actually be a plantain and not a banana lol.
  
• The chip: It’s a beautiful cinnamon color and it even has small dark brown spots that mimic traditional tortilla chips! There is a thick coating of flavor on the chip which is super appealing. I love a solid amount of flavor, so this is getting me pretty excited!!!

Touch

• The bag: Nice and smooth, however the bag is really loud when you’re trying to open it. It’s also a little difficult to open, so you make a bit of a cacophony while wrestling with it.
  
• The chip: It feels like a regular tortilla chip! There are the nice rough ridges that are reminiscent of a traditional tortilla chip!

Sound

• The bag: As I mentioned in the “Touch” section up above, this bag is not for the faint of heart! It. Is. Noisy.
  
• The chip: It has such an immaculate crunch!!! I was thinking that because it was made of plantain flour that it would have a softer, less impactful crunch, but I was so so wrong. These chips pack a wallop of a crunch and that is absolutely amazing!

Smell

• The bag: No smells to report, which is a good sign!!!
  
• The chip/inside the bag: OMG…if I could bottle up this scent and make an essential oil out of it, I would. This bag is the smell that you smell right before you die; it’s pure bliss! In addition to the bright, fresh citrusy goodness of lime, there is also the mouth-wateringly delicious combo of garlic and onion that assault your nostrils in the best possible way.

Taste

• The bag: Just like the smell, there’s no taste to the bag, so woohoo!!
  
• The chip: …I just…I can’t. These are so absolutely fucking delicious. I’m done. I’ve found my new favorite snack chip. The olfactory sensations are a great appetizer to the clean, robust flavor of these tortilla chips. The marriage of lime, garlic, onion, and salt is truly perfection. While still a bit soft, the plantain flour has a surprisingly satisfying crunch to it thanks to the light avocado oil that they’re cooked in. Also, you can’t taste the avocado oil, making this the perfect cooking oil: simple on flavor, but full of good-for-you fats!

Tickling My Senses Score: 9.8/10

These chips are absolutely perfect. My only qualm was that the bag was noisy and difficult to open, but you can just open it with scissors and problem solved. I’m taking off 0.2 points, though, because having to grab scissors can be a pain in the ass, especially when I’m hangry.

Price

To truly put these chips to the test, I compared the price of the Barnana Lime & Sea Salt Tortilla Chips to other grain-free tortilla chips as well as traditional flavored tortilla chips.

Compared to other grain-free chip brands:

• I compared the Barnana chips to comparable lime-flavored chips by brands like Siete, Thrive Market, and Late July. While these other brands cost roughly $3.50-$4.00 per bag, the Barnana chips cost about $4.50 per bag. It’s also worth noting that you get 0.5-1 more per bag with the other 3 brands, however that could be due to the heaviness of the ingredients they use (like cassava and tigernut flours).

Compared to traditional flavored tortilla chips:

• So, obviously traditional flavored tortilla chips, like Doritos Cool Ranch and El Sabroso Guacachip, are less expensive. That, though, is because these brands have been around longer and they have a higher supply chain, so they can produce more of their product since there is a large portion of the country that wants these chips. Also, the ingredients that are used are much cheaper. That said, though, those ingredients are also horrific. They are filled with chemicals and artificial things that should not be in your body! Even though these chips are less expensive, the long-term consequences and future medical expenses of an unhealthy diet are not worth it in the short-term.

Price Score: 7/10

Compared to traditional flavored tortilla chips and also other grain-free tortilla chips, these are a bit expensive. That said, though, these are currently the only tortilla chips on the market that are made from plantain flour, so they can definitely charge a little bit more because they have the market cornered! I would love for these to become popular in the future so that they price could go down a little bit.

So, Should I Buy This?

Before giving you my final verdict on these Barnana tortilla chips, let’s briefly summarize some of the pros & cons we’ve already discussed.

Pros

• The packaging and chips absolutely tickled my senses. Both the bag and the chips smell, taste, sound, look, and feel amazing! As soon as you can pop open one of the bags, the tremendous scent of lime, onion, and garlic slap you in the face in the most amazing way. And they taste even better than they smell! The crunch is superb and I would seriously die for these chips!
• They’re made of plantain flour, so they feel easier on your digestive system versus other types of gluten-free flours like cassava.
• These chips are cooked with avocado oil which is a healthier alternative to other oils like vegetable oil, cottonseed oil, rapeseed oil, and soybean oil to name a few.

Cons

• As we discussed in the “Price” section, these Barnana chips are a bit more expensive than other grain-free brands. This might be due to their use of plantain flour or even due to the smaller demand for grain-free tortilla chip alternatives. Whatever the case, shelling out $4.50 for a 5 ounce bag is a little hard on the budget!
• This is me being picky, but if you’re trying to sneak some chips in the middle of the night, this bag is difficult to open and LOUD. You can always use scissors to open the bag, though, so this isn’t a make or break kind of deal.

So, Should I Buy This?

All things considered, abso-fucking-lutely you should buy these chips! Despite the price, these are the only plantain flour chips that I’ve found that are amazing and have made me feel so good after eating them, so I will for sure be buying them again…and again…and again.

If you’re looking for a grain-free, gluten-free tortilla chip alternative, I highly recommend giving the Barnana Lime & Sea Salt Tortilla Chips a shot! I hope you love them as much as I do 🖤