The Sour Cream and Chives Baked Potato is part of the newly expanded My 99-cents Every Value Menu at Wendy’s. The other items are: Double Stack Cheeseburger, Crispy Chicken Sandwich, 5-Piece Spicy Chicken Nuggets, Value Fries, small soft drink and small Frosty. Wendy’s has a lot of bang for your buck.

But the Sour Cream and Chives Baked Potato — that’s your big boy. It’s big on value and big on nutrition, big on taste and, well, it’s just plain big.

Here’s the blueprint: a baked potato topped with low-fat sour cream and chives. So simple, so elegant. And they give you a lot of chives. Total calories: 320. Fat grams: 4. Carbs: 63. Dietary fiber: 7 grams. Manufacturer’s suggested retail price: 99 cents.

Here’s the big-value part. Wendy’s uses 80-count potatoes, which means there are about 80 potatoes in a 50-pound box. Let’s crunch the numbers and take in Mother Nature’s whims — a Wendy’s baked potato weighs between 9 1/2 and 12 ounces. And we haven’t put on the sour cream yet.

For comparison, Value Fries weigh about 2 1/2 ounces. The Sour Cream and Chives Baked Potato has about four times the heft, but only half the fat, of Value Fries. There’s your bargain. And there’s your healthier eating.

Wendy’s starts with Russet potatoes, the classic potato for baking. They’re wrapped in foil and popped in the oven for 60 minutes at 375 degrees. The foil keeps the potato moist and prevents the skin from becoming leathery.

The Sour Cream and Chives Baked Potato is served in a plastic boat designed for bakers. The sour cream is served in a separate packet so you can put on the amount you want. The amount I want is … none.

I prefer a pat of margarine, lots of salt and pepper, then I mush up the potato so it’s almost like mashed potatoes, or a twice-baked potato. The last thing I do is pick up the skin, fold it over and pop it in my mouth. It’s good ‘n’ chewy.

Substituting margarine for sour cream doesn’t affect the nutritional numbers. They’re about the same calories and fat grams.

Wendy’s introduced Hot Stuffed Baked Potatoes in 1983. The original goal was to give the customer another choice, an alternative to the same old, same old fries. Through the years, customers have become more knowledgeable about nutrition and healthier eating, and more penny pinching because of the rocky economy. Those factors have boosted the popularity and appreciation of baked potatoes.

While a Wendy’s baked potato has fewer fat grams, it has more calories than Value Fries. A Sour Cream and Chives Baked Potato packs 320 calories, Value Fries only 210. Of course, given that a Wendy’s baked potato is four times as much food as Value Fries, the baked potato is still the smarter play.

For teens and tweens, choosing a baked potato over fries makes a ton of sense. First, a baked potato will fill them up more. Second, if you know a teen who is satisfied with a small 2.5 ounce serving of fries, call the Guinness Book of World Records. Or better, Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Yes, baked potatoes are the healthier, better-value option … until you start customizing a baked potato with cheese sauce, sour cream, butter and bacon bits. Now you’ve got a fully loaded 530-calorie tater with 21 grams of fat for $2.89. This is the law of diminishing returns. You might as well get a quarter-pound cheeseburger, which has fewer calories and the same number of fat grams as a tricked-out spud.