This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.

Behold the humble potato chip, snack food of the ages. Claimed to have been invented in 1853 in the road house kitchen of Native American George Crum, the potato chip traveled through American snack history in a class of it's own. That is, until in the early 1960s, when it was discovered that you could grind potatoes into a slurry and then press them back into a consumable form.

I sat down one day with a bag of potato chips from Lay's and with a can of Pringles. Lay's are made by Frito-Lay, a property of PepsiCo Inc. ( NYSE: PEP). Pringles are made by Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG). I wanted to compare the two in order to assess their similarities and differences. What I found were two very different snacking sensations although both are derived from the same source. The Lay's ingredient list is simple. They're made with potatoes, oil, and salt, with no preservatives added. The Pringles ingredient list begins with the same potatoes, oil, and salt, but the product also contains at least traces of wheat starch and rice flour in addition to a couple common food chemicals.

When my b-school buddy, Jaime, started working in the corporate strategy group at PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP), I knew the time had come: soon she'd somehow convince the company to change its ways and become healthy! Starting with that high fructose corn syrup that fills so many of the company's sodas and is (I insist) one of the leading causes of childhood obesity.

Imagine my surprise when I saw one of the front-page headlines for the Wall Street Journal today [subscription required]: "Pepsi Sales Force Tries to Push 'Healthier' Snacks in Inner City." No, it wasn't that scourge of sweetener, HFCS: it was chips. Especially those preservative- and saturated fat-packed Flamin' Hot Cheetos and Nacho Cheese Doritos. I can just see the orange fingers all over Chicago, now.

Company executives are using top-down tactics to push Baked Lays and other lower-fat options in the inner city. Already Pepsi is on my good list for having removed trans-fats (i.e. partially hydrogenated vegetable oils) from the company's chips. Chicagoans, though, are skeptical and the convenience stores where PepsiCo sales efforts are focused are reacting with the speed of dinosaur bones fossilizing. Or thereabouts.

Maybe customers aren't jumping all over themselves for Baked Lays. [And it's interesting to note that these efforts are all the work of outgoing CEO Steve Reinemund, who was relieved of leadership by Indra Nooyi earlier this week -- there's no telling what her plans regarding the healthy sales will be.] But I have an idea, Pepsi! Take out that high fructose corn syrup and replace it with some nice cane syrup, or something else far less chemically altered. Your customers won't notice. And boy will I buy your stock then.

As it is, nice effort. Keep up the good work Pepsi, I'd much rather have corporate efforts wasted (if indeed they are, as the WSJ suggests, beating the corporate head against the inner-city Chicago wall) on trying to convince customers to eat my healthier options than on, I don't know, spying on one another, or padding the pockets of tainted lobbyists. Ya know?

I may be the only one, though. Despite the mention, shares of PEP were down 13 cents today, to $64.78. It's worth mentioning that the stock is only a dollar or so from its 52-week high, and the three-year trend is nuthin' but up. Healthy just may be good for increasing the wealth in your pockets, as well as the pants that hold them.