Facts is Facts

In the pantheon of snack foods you have many categories. You have your Twinkies, HoHos, Dingdongs and Zingers. You have your salty snacks like chips and pretzels. Some poor misguided people will claim raisins and carrots and apple slices qualify as snacks. If you fall into this category you are delusional and need to get help.

As we continue the Holiday Weekend, we will be cooking out or entertaining friends. An understanding of snack foods and their hierarchy is in order. Today we will discuss the salty snacks.

There is no dispute the penultimate food is beef, followed by bacon. Cheetos finishes the triumvirate. King of snack foods, the Cheeto is light, fluffy and filled with artificial cheesy goodness. Slightly curved for a fun eating experience, the Cheeto can be consumed with beer, soda or even lemonade. Cheetos even has a cool spokesperson. Not far behind Cheetos is popcorn and pretzels. Chips in general and Cheese Nips round out the snack food top five.

Under the label Chips is a whole subcategory. Depending on your mood and total snack experience the ratings are hard to establish. Are you having dips, how do you rate the various flavors, where do rank Fritos? Are the a separate category all their own? Heck, some people even like bagel chips.

Now those crazy, kooky elves at Keebler have thrown a monkey wrench at us snacksters. They have combined salty snacks with crackers. The new Flip Sides product is quickly moving up the snack food ranks and may be a contender in the future. The pretzel/cheese cracker gives us the steadiness of a pretzel with the goody cheesiness of a Cheese Nip in one combination.

Flip Sides, Ruffles and sour cream and onion dip, Cheetos, popcorn, peanuts, I can see I am going to have a tough challenge ahead this weekend. I have cold beer in waiting. Good snacking lies ahead.