Snack Time

Tonight the wife and I caved to our snack desires and bought a bag of Cheetos and some diet cola. Normally for us, snack time has meant things like arare, sembei, potato chips, fruit and cheese, and so forth. Any one of those things and I'd be reasonably full, especially given how little I eat many days. This night I find myself instead being generally unsatisfied with the continued desire to eat more of these corn doodles.

I'm certain some of it has to do with the salt content, as well as how much volume the individual pieces lose when chewed. I get that. What I don't get is the lack of satisfaction involved. I have been craving for some good ol' American snack food, something I could take some pride in as a consumer. When Wifey suggested Cheetos I took it to heard with gusto.

Now I'm trying to solve the 'mystery' of why these things don't even taste as awesome as I thought they did a year ago. They're still great in a bag of Munchies, and they smelled greatly cheesy when we opened them about an hour ago... but I'm left unimpressed. I wonder if this is why someone felt they were an okay delivery medium for strawberry flavoring?

The two simplest solutions are that a) my tastes are changing or b) there's something wrong with the bag. The little mylar package was in good shape, there were no holes, and the expiration date is still far in the future. They are clearly just corn doodles that have been well coated with cheap cheese-based flavor powders. I think we've ruled out there being something "off" about the cheese snacks. That leaves it down to me and my tastes.

So what's so different? I still love spicy and strong-flavored foods. Some good fajitas spritzed with lime or a big serving of pho are definitively top-notch to me. There was just something that wasn't met by my standards, and it surprised me. I'm not mad about it, just confused. But I think I'll probably not buy a bag of these things again.