Junk Food and Snacks

I’m running low on holiday inspiration this year, so I’ll go with this.

Ideally we should stay away from junk food, but somehow we can’t always resist.  I’ve already discussed fast food; this variant is the kind you can eat at home.  Snacks might be another word.  What else would you call what you eat between meals?  Late at night after dinner?  Mid-morning between breakfast and lunch?  Anything short of a full meal, or short of maintaining a diet solely three meals a day; forgive me if I’ve forgotten whether the Internet Health Nazis claim we should be eating only three meals or whether we’re allowed to snack whenever we’re actually hungry, regardless of what the clock says or how recently we’ve eaten.  Anyhow.

For that matter, the IHN’s will insist that our “snacks” be only fruits and vegetables.  Enough with that.

Candy/bars.   Preferably with chocolate, but Twizzlers, Skittles, Starburst also qualify.   Gummi bears, sour worms, gummi colas, Sweet Tarts, and Sour Patch Kids are also sweet and nice.  Of the chocolate variants, Milky Way (US variety), Bounty (coconut and milk chocolate, much better than Mounds), and Caramello are my favorite.  Add in Flake from Cadbury.   Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and M&Ms are also excellent sources of junk nutrition.

Popcorn.   Forget microwave popcorn or Jiffy Pop.  I’ll stick with Smartfood, the cheese flavored popcorn that beats all others, including other cheese popcorns.

Potato Chips.   Utz, Lay’s, Ruffles, I like most of these, including the Carolina BBQ flavor and sometimes the crab flavor.  In Brazil they have meat-flavored Ruffles (“sabor de carne”), which taste like ruffled chips dipped in steak juices, and taste about as delicious as you might imagine.  Aside from a few bags at the local Mobil station quickie-mart – and nowhere else, even on the Ruffles website – they are only in Brazil, maybe Romania too.

Tortilla Chips & Salsa.  This was something I started eating in college.   Heating a metal can of Frito-Lay Jalapeno & Cheddar cheese (the Utz version isn’t nearly as good) is also a nice dip.  At first I couldn’t handle spicy salsa and just got the medium, until I developed a tolerance and even Tostito’s Hot is not hot.  Now I’m up to Mrs. Renfro’s Ghost Pepper.   As for the chips, the blue corn is nice, but I prefer Tostito’s Lime flavored chips the most.  A bit messy and dusty but delicious – and they’re still delicious by themselves if you run out of salsa, which can’t be said for most plain chips.

Doritos.  These have been around since the 1960s.   I remember in the early 80s, the choices at the commissary were toasted corn (too bland), Taco (very hot, too much for my kid-age taste buds) and nacho cheese, which was just right.  I never liked cool ranch.  The 3D doritos were pretty cool while they lasted. 

Pizza.  I covered this in the fast food blog.  Since no one delivers pizza by the slice, a full pizza counts more as a full meal, even shared among friends.  But I do love the breadsticks, cinnasticks, etc.

Hostess.   Finally these are back, but I’m waiting for the Suzi-Q’s to return.  Twinkies or yellow cupcakes were not my favorites:  Ho-Hos, chocolate cupcakes, and the aforementioned Suzi-Q’s are, though the Suzi-Qs can get extremely messy.  Honorable mention to Drake’s Devil Dogs.