"snack food" news and stories

Jif has a new product on the market called Jif Peanut Butter To Go. Are you familiar with those individual containers of applesauce? This is almost the exact same thing, but with creamy peanut butter instead of applesauce. The idea behind it is that the 2.25-oz cups can be tucked into lunch boxes, picnic baskets and the backseats of cars to make a convenient dip for veggies, pretzels or anything else that tastes good with peanut butter.

You might want to limit yourself to veggies, with these though, because although peanuts in general are very good for you, they're also high in fat and calories. Each container has 390 calories and 32 grams of fat - that's 50% of the recommended daily maximum! It's a good source of fiber and quite low in carbs, but that is still a hefty snack for such a little package.

A lot of that popcorn   I have eaten in my life has come from microwave bags, and the rest has come from popping corn the old fashioned way: on the stove. To my knowledge, most of the popcorn has been of the hard, yellow-kernel variety. I now think that I was missing out.

Fireworks Popcorn, most likely named after the audible similarities between popping corn and distant fireworks, packages naturally-grown gourmet popcorns, offering more than ten different varieties. One of the things that they point out about their popcorn, in addition to saying that it is both colorful and flavorful, is that it is smaller and has a more delicate hull than conventional popcorns. When I popped the some of the Starshell Red popcorn, using the microwave method, I found that to be very true. Even the half popped kernels were not very hard (yeah, I accidentally ate a few) and took no more effort to chew than a hard pretzel stick might.

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The San Francisco Chronicle did a taste test of 9 store brands of prepopped, bagged popcorn that they found around the Bay Area. While microwave popcorn doesn't really take that long to make, the bagged stuff offers even more convenience and instant gratification. Not to mention the fact that opening a bag of it will not leave your kitchen smelling like popcorn for the next 24 hours. The Chronicle's criteria? They looked for flavor and appearance, but the most important quality for the popcorn to have was crunch. If it wasn't crispy, it wasn't worth eating, and not all the brands stacked up. Their top two picks were Whole Foods 365 Organic and O Organics, which is the Safeway store brand. Following the top brands were Erin's (from Andronico's market), Bearitos Lite (from Rainbow) and Trader Joe's. The other four finishers? Let's just say that if the taste tester didn't want them, neither do you.

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Frito Lay is releasing a new version of its popular Tostitos tortilla chips: Multigrain Tostitos. The new chips are made with four whole grains, including corn, oat, buckwheat and wheat, contain no trans fats and little saturated fat. When compared to the classic Restaurant Style Tostitos, which are made with whole, white corn, the Multigrain have 65mg of potassium and more dietary fiber, though they actually contain slightly less calcium. The fat and calorie counts are very similar.

A nuttier, multigrain taste will probably enable the new chips to compete with crackers as a dipable snack food, good for things like cheese spreads and hummus. The regular corn tortilla chips will still be tops for salsa, though, since there isn't enough nutritional benefit to be gained from making a switch to give up that classic taste.

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Snack cakes are a hot-button issue for a lot of people, especially if the controversy over snackable wedding cakes is any indication. They represent a classic comfort for as most people had them during childhood. Even if your parents kept them out of the house and out of your lunchbox, chances are good that you were able to indulge once in a while at the home of a friend. From Twinkies to jam-filled krimpets, everyone has a favorite. If I had to guess, though, I would say that any kind of cream-filled chocolate cupcake is the favorite for most people.

Ding Dongs and Ring Dings are actually the same thing: a chocolate covered, cream-filled cupcake. Though sold under different brand names, Hostess and Drake's, respectively, they are produced by the same company. Hostess also sells their Ding Dongs as King Dons in some states, where there was a competitor with a similar name and they wanted to avoid confusion. The when the competitor went out of business, they tried to return to selling only Ding Dongs, but there was such an outcry, that they kept the King name. Little Debbie also makes a similar product, called a Devil Square and Tastykake makes a cream-filled chocolate cupcake, though only their Kandy Kakes are fully covered in chocolate, not their cupcakes.

Some people swear that they can taste the difference between these products, but I think that it's unlikely. Packaging doesn't impart any flavor into the cake within. Personally, I think that Tastykake makes the best of the bunch, though I'll take a Butterscotch Krimpet over a cream-filled cupcake any day.