Tag Archives: Cheetos

Junk Food

Cheetos Sweetos Caramel Puffs

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I always love when traditionally savory brands get into the holiday-themed snack game, but man, Cheetos, why did you have to puss out and go sweet on me? I know Frito-Lay has the dark magic ability to make meat-flavored snacks. Couldn’t we go ham, as it were? That’s an Easter classic!

Okay, sorry to start this review out with a rant. While I didn’t get the odd blessing/curse of ham-flavored Cheetos, I did at least get these Cheetos Sweetos. Last year around Easter, Cheetos introduced their first Sweetos flavor, Cinnamon Sugar. Now they’re adding Caramel to the line.

Unlike the bag of Cinnamon Sugar Puffs, Cheetos has erased all trace of connections with Easter. Chester is still as maniacally enthusiastic as ever, but gone are the rabbit ears. Now he’s crazy for what appears to just be an entire bowl of melted caramel. Cool your heels, bro. That amount of caramel is strictly for making caramel apples for Halloween.

Despite the Easter-scrubbing, for some reason Cheetos decided to keep the Puffs egg-shaped, which seems an odd choice given the lack of bunnies on the package. But at least it makes for a structurally sound Puff.

Upon opening the bag of Sweetos, I was struck by the unmistakable smell of Brach’s caramel squares. Points to Cheetos for authenticity on that one!

…And, after tasting them, points immediately taken away. Well, let me expound: the Puffs were absolutely true to the smell. Cheetos Sweetos Caramel Puffs have a super authentic caramel taste, and therein lies the problem.

The Cinnamon Sugar Puffs kind of worked because they were evocative of churros, but these just taste like sweet caramel on top of savory corn puff. It’s highly disconcerting to both the taste buds and the mouthfeel, because something that tastes exactly like caramel should not have this kind of crunchy and airy texture.

I really thought Cheetos Sweetos Caramel Puffs would just be a sort of “meh” experience, but my mouth has been deeply offended. In fact, now I wish waaaay more that Cheetos had come out with some ham-flavored egg-shaped Puffs. That would be infinitely better than these things. Nailing the caramel flavor turned out to be the actual problem.

Blech, I’m going to go drink some milk now to cleanse my palate. These things stick with you, too.

Oh, and unlike the Cinnamon Sugar Puffs variety, there’s no indication on the bag that these are limited edition. So you can not enjoy these all year-round!

Limited Time Cheetos Sweetos Caramel Puffs

  • Score: 0.5 out of 5 Easter Bunny Chester Cheetahs
  • Price: $1.39
  • Size: 2.6 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirk: Contains no actual caramel – just “caramel seasoning” – which makes the authentic taste even more mysterious and, in some ways, insulting?
Junk Food

Cheetos Bag of Bones Flamin’ Hot

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cheetos-bag-of-bones-flamin-hot-bagToday is Halloween and I didn’t do ONE SINGLE spooky review this year. What a shitty Junk Food Betty.

Honestly, I was really unimpressed with this year’s offerings, but that’s no excuse. To make it up you, here is my heart:

cheetos-bag-of-bones-flamin-hot-heart

Or, more specifically, my rib cage. But I thought it looked like a heart.

The one thing that caught my eye this year was Cheetos Bag of Bones Flamin’ Hot. I know, I know, it’s not a new flavor OR a new concept. But it’s so perfect.

Look at our skeleton man on the package. He’s obviously being tortured by an Evil Chester Cheetah, who cackles in glee at his misfortune. Eeee!

cheetos-bag-of-bones-flamin-hot-skeleton

Here’s this year’s Cheeto skeleton, or should I say, HELLeton. As you can see, several of his bony demon fingers have been pulled off, either through some method of torture or because the OSHA standards are clearly lacking in hell.

cheetos-bag-of-bones-flamin-hot

Here is a hell sun, because when the demons come to walk the earth it will be like the scorching of a thousand suns. Or something? I don’t know! Ask Evil Chester Cheetah!

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Junk Food

Limited Time Cheetos Sweetos Cinnamon Sugar Puffs

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Cheetos Sweetos Cinnamon Sugar Puffs BagI love that Cheetos has been engaging in the holiday spirit lately. The holidays usually belong to the world of candy and cookies. First there was Bag of Bones, and now there’s Sweetos Cinnamon Sugar Puffs.

On paper, the name shows no affiliation whatsoever with a holiday, but on bag, Cheetos Sweetos are Easter Central.

Cheetos Sweetos Cinnamon Sugar Puffs Chester Cheetah Easter Bunny

Chester Cheetah, one of my favorite snack mascots, is totally ready to party. He’s rocking the same cheap bunny-ear headband you yourself could buy at Party City, but he refuses to part with his trademark sunglasses. Then again, the sky is blue and the grass is green, so maybe he’s just being smart and protecting his eyes from the springtime sun.

He’s obviously on an Easter egg hunt, and he’s already grabbed some sweet finds for his basket – I spot “Monster Eyes” egg, “Charlie Brown, pastel style” egg, and what looks like a timely tribute to Barney the dinosaur.

But Chester’s after the best eggs of all – that’s right, Sweetos are shaped like decorated Easter eggs!

Except…why is this not in the name? Why not call them Sweetos Eggos? Oh…wait. Right. Actually, I can’t think of a single Easter pun that would work in this context, which is a rare  for me. So I guess I should stop bashing Cheetos for going with “Cinnamon Sugar Puffs”. Rhyming Cheetos and Sweetos is good enough for me.

When I first heard of Sweetos, I was pretty excited (like I do) and brought them up in conversation several times. Each time, I got the same response: “Ew, gross!”

I don’t understand this knee-jerk reaction at all. What’s with the immediate revulsion to the idea of cinnamon sugar puffs? My brain instantly went to Taco Bell (like I do) and their Cinnamon Twists.

I haven’t purchased these in at least a decade, what with having to save that precious stomach room for one extra Meximelt, but Cinnamon Twists are a tasty treat and I dare you to say otherwise. It’s the closest thing you’re going to get to a churro without going to the fair. Or Disneyland.

Upon opening my Sweetos bag, I was hit a strong, delicious aroma that I immediately recognized: Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is one of my favorite cereals, so I was off to a good start.

Cheetos Sweetos Cinnamon Sugar Puffs

Cheetos Sweetos (why yes, I do enjoy saying that) could taste like dog turds and I still couldn’t deny them the kudos that the snack’s shape deserves. Each one is distinctly egg-shaped instead of just oval, with a larger base and narrower tip. And each one has two “stripes” that work both aesthetically and as a support structure to the shape. Despite their delicate texture, which was way less dense than a regular Cheeto, very few of my Sweetos were broken.

And yes, I was totally right – they taste a lot like Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists. Vindication, naysayers! They were very light and airy, but all had a generous amount of flavor dust on them. That’s another good reason to include the stripes – more surface area for the dust to cling to!

If only that dust carried more sugar. This is Cheetos Sweetos’ biggest downfall – the cinnamon is fine, but I found the sugar coating to be lacking. If I’m going to eat a cinnamon sugar snack, I want it to be cavity-inducing. This left them tasting a little flat.

The corn base is so airy that it tastes like almost nothing, which is kind of the point. The cinnamon and sugar should mask all corn. Again, the cinnamon does its job, but there’s only a little bit of sugar.

I might be wrong, but I can’t think of any snack out there on store shelves that’s like Cheetos Sweetos Cinnamon Sugar Puffs. And, since these are a Limited Time flavor, soon they’ll be gone forever, too.

I was going to say that I wish Cheetos Sweetos would stick around forever, but I kind of enjoy that such a thing is only available for a limited time. This is probably because I have to believe Sweetos will be back for another holiday. Tiny flag puffs for 4th of July, maybe?

Limited Time Cheetos Sweetos Cinnamon Sugar Puffs

  • Score: 3 out of 5 Easter Bunny Chester Cheetahs
  • Price: $2.49
  • Size: 7 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirk: With brown sugar, sugar and molasses listed as ingredients, you’d think my sweet tooth would be more entertained.
Junk Food

Cheetos Bag of Bones White Cheddar

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Cheetos Bag of Bones White Cheddar BagThis is not so much a review as it is a celebration of what I think is the best new thing to come around this Halloween. The month is almost over and I haven’t gotten to do nearly as much as I wanted, but this item deserves to shine.

Guys, it’s a Bag of Bones!

I have always felt like the savory snacks get sorely neglected every holiday season. It’s all about the candy. But why?! Come Halloween, the best you can usually hope for is some holiday-themed snack bags to give out to trick-or-treaters.

But Cheetos has gone all out with their Bag of Bones. You’ve got all the parts to make your own skeleton – skull, ribcage, generic connector bones, and hands/feet. The hands and feet are the same, but hey. I got no bones to pick with that. You know I was going to go there.

I’m not here to talk about the quality of these Cheetos – if you’re looking for that, they’re the same as these Winter White Cheddar Cheetos in both flavor and texture, except that they’re shaped like skeleton parts so they’re 1,000 times more awesome.

So I, a grown woman, spent an afternoon playing with Cheetos. Here are just a few things I came up with. Yes, I actually made more shapes than this, but didn’t even photograph them. I did it purely for the joy of Halloween Cheetos.

Cheetos Bag of Bones White Cheddar Joe Bones

Here we have Joe Bones, the original skeleton as pictured on the front of the bag. I tried to make sure his fingers actually pointed in an anatomically correct manner. Can’t say as I accomplished this feat (or feet, as it were), since some of the digits were broken off and…well, it’s a Cheeto, so.

Cheetos Bag of Bones White Cheddar Slim Jim

This is Slim Jim. I wanted to give him extra leg bones, but I ran out of room. These Cheetos are deceptively large. Slim is about two feet taller than all the other skeletons, due to actually having a neck. He is the star center on the basketball team at Monster University. He can also palm the ball. Which is a severed human head.

Cheetos Bag of Bones White Cheddar Duane Bradley Belial

This is Duane Bradley and his parasitic twin, Belial. Pretty self-explanatory.

Cheetos Bag of Bones White Cheddar Bette Dot

We shall call these…this…her? Bette and Dot, keeping with this year’s theme on American Horror Story. I figured I needed to include a strong female presence. Hm, they should have made Cheeto pelvises. That would have been fun.

Cheetos Bag of Bones White Cheddar Spider

I think this is my favorite. It’s also the scariest, if you can make puffed corn snacks actually scary. It doesn’t have a name, it just wants to eat you. It also took a while to find all those bone parts, since they are smaller and thus sunk to the bottom of the bag. I had to eat my way through a lot of rib cages and skulls to collect them all. It was a labor of love, and cheese powder.

Well, there you have it! I declare Cheetos Bag of Bones White Cheddar a fabulous break from all the Halloween sweets out there. They’re tasty, they’re fun, and they’re not candy. Bag of Bones is the best.

Junk Food, News

News: Cheetos Crunchy and Doritos Fiery Fusion Shock The World by Combining the Flavors of Peppers and Cheese

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I was immediately excited and then somewhat un-excited to see new Cheetos Crunchy and Doritos Fiery Fusion snacks at my local convenience store the other day. My brain went, “Yay! New chip flavors!” Then my eyeballs looked closer and saw that the “Fusion” flavors were “Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese”.

Forgive me for not throwing handfuls of confetti in the air, but the “spicy/cheese” combo has become a bit played out to me. Notable ingredients in the Cheetos Fiery Fusion include brown sugar, aged red cayenne peppers, blue cheese, cheddar cheese, jalapeño pepper, and paprika. The Doritos version differs slightly, using regular sugar and containing no blue cheese but keeping the cayenne, jalapeño and paprika.

One serving of Cheetos Crunchy Fiery Fusion contains 150 calories, 10 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 190 milligrams of sodium, 14 grams of carbohydrates and no cholesterol.

One serving of the Doritos version of Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese has 140 calories, 8 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 160 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates and no cholesterol.

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy spicycheesy snacks just as much as the next capsaicin-tolerant person. I’ll probably give one or both of these Fusions a try at some point. I’d just like to see a little more creativity from the Frito-Lay flavormakers. No word if “Fiery Fusion” is going to be a whole line or just a one-shot deal, but I wouldn’t mind seeing future varying concoctions show up in the snack aisle.

Source: Frito-Lay’s website

Junk Food, News

News: Frito-Lay Introduces Limited Edition Retro Throwback Product Bags; Apparently Wants to Keep It a National Secret

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Limited edition retro…throwback Ruffles and Cheetos! Have your nostalgia sensors gone wild yet? Are you ready to go out there and find these chips RIGHT NOW so you can pretend it’s…uh, whatever year these bags are meant to imitate?

I would love to tell you that year. Or anything else about these chips. The Internet seems completely devoid of information about their existence, minus this Flickr picture I found that showcases all the other retro brands I didn’t find; namely, Cheetos Puffs, Rold Gold Pretzel Rods and King Size Fritos. The photo also includes Taco Doritos, but I already reviewed those.

So this news post is sadly deprived of news, beyond the fact that I can tell you they exist. I can also tell you that I expected the chips to contain identical ingredients to a regular bag of Ruffles or Cheetos. The chips looked exactly the same as modern Ruffles and Cheetos. Going off of Frito-Lay’s website, the Ruffles contained the exact same and amount of ingredients as regular Ruffles.

The Cheetos are a little more interesting, however. I could taste no difference between retro and regular Cheetos, but the ingredients do appear different. Retro Cheetos use vegetable oil, while “contemporary” Cheetos use corn and/or sunflower oil. Retro Cheetos include cheddar cheese seasoning and cheddar cheese, while the regular Cheetos just have the latter. And finally, retro Cheetos list salt as the last ingredient, where salt falls in the middle of the list on regular Cheetos. So there do seem to be some differences, even if my palate is apparently not refined enough to taste them.

The back of the Cheetos bag also has Chester Cheetah goin’ all Uncle Sam, and also says, “Here’s to over 60 years of great flavor”. So Cheetos is having an anniversary. What about the rest of the brands? Who knows, the Internet won’t tell me. It is all mystery. But I figured they should be thrown up on the Internet, if only to catalog their existence.

Junk Food

Limited Winter Edition Cheetos Puffs Winter White Cheddar

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Limited Winter Edition Cheetos Puffs Winter White Cheddar apparently really wants you to know that it’s winter. I’m sure those of you who live in the Northeast are already well aware of that. Nevertheless, Cheetos wants a reason for the season. Actually, they want a reason to make limited edition Puffs. Winter is often white, because of snow. White cheddar is (somewhat) white! Boom. I’m disappointed they didn’t make the Puffs in the form of snowflakes. Perhaps that technology is not yet available.

Cheetos already makes White Cheddar Puffs, but they’re only available in their Natural line of products. This means that instead of organic corn meal, cheddar cheese and sour cream, Winter White Cheddar Puffs contain enriched corn meal, cheese seasoning, and MSG. But Chester Cheetah is riding a Puff like it’s a snowboard! The back of the bag says “Strap on your gear because you’re in for a ride.”

I’m assuming by “gear” he means your obesity-necessitated sleep apnea machine and by “ride” he means the ambulance ride you’ll take when you forget to take your insulin. I’m just saying.

I just read on Frito-Lay’s Snack Chat blog that Winter White Cheddar Puffs were only available through the end of December. I guess that shows you how long I’ve had them (in my defense they have not reached their expiration date yet) and also that you will not be able to eat them. I’m sorry. Egg on my face, eh?

Snack Chat also brought to me this interesting sentence: “The packaging even features Cheester Cheetah snowboarding, and they’re made with real cheese.” The “even” makes me feel like they’re a little desperate. Wait, didn’t I already explore this joke three paragraphs ago? It’s disturbing to think that I’ve started mind-melding with Frito-Lay’s marketing department.

The sentence is also worded in such a way that it reads like the two have something to do with each other. Snowboarding and cheese, together at last. Oh, and I just realized Frito-Lay blog writer “Katherine” spelled Chester’s name wrong! With quality writers like Katherine, how am I not writing for Snack Chat already? Oh, it’s probably because of unnecessarily scathing criticisms like these. Hm.

While the white cheddar on the Puffs is rather white, apparently they couldn’t take a step further and bleach the enriched corn meal. This means the Puffs themselves are yellow, and they couldn’t drench them in enough cheese seasoning to hide that fact. So the Winter White is more like Summer Sunset Pale Yellow. Ah well, at least you can still use them as a snowboard.

I’ve never had Cheetos Puffs before. I was surprised at how big they are. Any one of them could have replaced my index finger, if I wanted my index finger to always be crooked and Cheetos were medically approved to be used as finger transplants. One day, technology will catch up.

Cheetos Puffs are fluffy, crunchy and somewhat dense at the same time. They remind me a little bit of Planters Cheez Balls. The corn meal taste of Cheetos is definitely present, and the white cheddar powder compliments that flavor. I found myself going from “eat for review” to “see how I can fit a Puff into my mouth like I have a retainer” to “mindlessly munching while watching TV instead of writing review”. At worst, that makes them inoffensive. At best, I seem to enjoy shoving giant Cheetos into my mouth.

Limited Winter Edition Cheetos Puffs Winter White Cheddar stands on a pretty weak gimmick, especially considering there’s already a version of Cheetos White Cheddar Puffs out there with (allegedly) healthier and more “real” ingredients, but I like them anyway. I’m a sucker for limited edition products, even more so when they’re trying to tie themselves to a holiday or season. Plus, you know, Chester Cheetah riding a Puff like a snowboard. You could pick up pretty much any white cheddar-flavored snack food and get the same flavor powder, but hey, why not have it on a Winter Puff? Oh, right, because they no longer exist. The texture of the Puff is interesting, although I wish they hadn’t made them the size of my entire jaw. Will I Winter Puff again? Well, no, because I’m an asshole and waited too long to write this review, so now we all can’t. But I may try the Natural White Cheddar Puffs just to see if the better ingredients add up to better flavor.

  • Score: 3.5 out of 5 Cheeeeeesters
  • Price: $1.29
  • Size: 3 1/4 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Circle K
  • Nutritional Quirks: With the same serving size, Winter White Cheddar Puffs and Natural White Cheddar Puffs have the exact same amount of calories.  Natural has one less gram of fat.  Winter actually has 70 mg less sodium. So much for natural meaning healthier!
Junk Food

Limited Edition Cheetos Mighty Zingers CRAZY Cheddar and WICKED Picante Flavored Snacks

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I’m stupid.

Okay, maybe I’m not completely stupid. But I am overzealous. When I read this in Frito-Lay’s Snack Chat blog, I got to “a limited-time snack with a special Halloween twist” and my brain went YAY! So much yay, in fact, that I didn’t put it together that CRAZY cheddar and WICKED picante actually meant sharp cheddar and salsa picante, a flavor of Mighty Zingers that I already reviewed here. It even explicitly states this in the next sentence, but I paid no attention. You put the words “limited edition” and “Halloween” together, and I lose all sense of control or logic.

So I picked these up at the store and soon realized my folly. You’d think I would have just given up there, but NO! This is Halloween, dammit, and if Frito-Lay is going to repackage an already-existing flavor for the holiday and trick me into buying it, then I’m going to review it, even if it means I have to photograph yet another incredibly shiny foil bag that turns every shot into an all-out glare-fest. Seriously, Cheetos, stop it. I only know how to do three things in GIMP, and removing glare is not one of them.

There are three things of note about this product, however. First of all, I bought a “Hungry Grab”, which is a bag size I’ve never seen before. It’s about the same width as a “Big Grab” bag that you usually find in a convenience store, but longer. I believe you would have to be rather hungry to finish off one of these bags in one sitting. It contains quite a few grabs.

Second, while re-purposing a flavor for Halloween is kind of weak, at least they tried to give a little backstory on the back of the bag: “Chester’s lab experiment went haywire causing Cheetos Mighty Zingers snacks to make a transformation”. I’ve seen Chester’s lab, and the idea of one of his experiments going haywire is very plausible. This brings me to my third point:

GREEN CHIPS! Or “snacks”, to be more precise. This is not the first time Cheetos has gone green. It may not even be the second or third, I gave up looking after a two-second Google search. Doesn’t matter. Green Cheetos are awesome.

If you want to know more about the actual flavor of these Cheetos, I refuse to repeat myself, so go read the article linked above. I will say, however, that it’s delightfully disconcerting to eat Flamin’ Hot Cheetos leftover bits that are green instead of fire-truck red. One might even call it…MADNESS! MUAHAHAHAHA!

On a final note, I now demand Christmas Flamin’ Hot Cheetos with red and green in the same bag. I will throw a candy cane-induced temper tantrum if this does not happen.

  • Score: 3 out of 5 hungry grabs
  • Price: $1.29
  • Size: 3 1/4 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: Green Cheetos.  ‘Nuff said.
Junk Food

Cheetos Mighty Zingers Sharp Cheddar & Salsa Picante Snacks

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Cheetos, widely known as being the favorite snack of nerds, has been on a roll these past few years, releasing several different twists on their traditional gnarled, neon orange, dust-covered “snacks”. They’ve gone giant, they’ve gone white, and now, they’ve gone tiny and, uh, zinged.

Earlier this year, Frito-Lay introduced Cheetos Mighty Zingers. There are two flavors: Ragin’ Cajun & Tangy Ranch and Sharp Cheddar & Salsa Picante. Their press release states that “Cheetos lovers are in for the ultimate treat, because Chester Cheetah is today unleashing a new cheesy innovation called Cheetos Mighty Zingers – the tiniest Cheetos snacks ever made and marketed.”

I’m sorry, are you looking for a gold star or maybe a smiley-face sticker? Congratulations, you made Cheetos that are smaller than normal Cheetos. Holy shit, alert the press! Wait, that’s actually exactly what they’re doing. You’re already annoying me, Cheetos.

Mighty Zingers’ gimmick is one that seems to be gaining popularity: take two differently-flavored products of the same type and pack them into one bag. The general idea seems to be to have one spicy flavor and one cooling flavor, like the classic buffalo wings and ranch combo. Nobody’s ever sat me down and explained it to me, but I’m assuming you’re supposed to shove them both into your mouth at the same time to achieve the spicy-then-soothing effect. Your results may vary. The idea here seems to be more in the category of complimentary flavors. Who doesn’t love salsa con queso? Communists, that’s who. Don’t be a pinko; eat the fucking chips. Er, snacks.

One thing I love about these snacks right off the bat is that they have taken an age-old snacking problem and finally found a solution for it. The problem: I want to get as much processed food into my mouth as fast as I can, but when I tip back the bag and start pouring them into my giant, unhinged maw, chips start flying everywhere and I get flavor dust in my eyes! The solution? Well, again, I think Cheetos’ press release says it best: “There’s even a playful perforated ‘pouring tab’ up top, making it easier than ever to pop a delicious handful of Mighty Zingers straight into your mouth.”

I think we all know that they don’t intend for you to ever be touching these Cheetos with your hands. That bag, with its “playful pouring tab”, is going straight to your lips. I assume this is why they have made these the tiniest Cheetos ever(!) Easier to pour them into your mouth. Who has time for things like reaching into a bag? There’s a motherfucking raid going on with my guild over here, folks! Of course, this does eliminate the need to suck sticky flavor dust off your fingers. So maybe they are on to something, here.

Somebody on the Cheetos marketing team thinks they’re Charles fucking Dickens, because there’s a goddamn novel written on the back of the bag. Since the picture is probably too small and probably blurry (thanks again, metallic bag), I’ll write it all out for you:

DON’T CALL THEM SMALL.

These tiny Cheetos Snacks are mighty in taste.

THE SHARP CHEDDAR WILL MAKE YOUR TASTE BUDS TAKE NOTICE, AND THE SALSA PICANTE IS TOO ROWDY TO RESIST.

Together these Cheetos Snacks create a cheesy flavor that’ll shove your tongue around.

Their numbers will amaze you. Their tastes will astound you.

There are endless ways to enjoy this mixture of mightiness. Sort them, combine them,

BUT DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF CHEETOS MIGHTY ZINGERS SNACKS.

I can’t tell if Mighty Zingers are going to delight my palate or come out of the bag and kick my ass like Guido coming to collect on an outstanding loan.

I expected the playful pour tab to rip down the entire side of the bag, creating a giant mess, but it tore almost exactly on the perforation, creating just the right hole to pour these little choking hazards right down your gullet. The cheddar does indeed look sharp, and the salsa, picante, so they got the colors right, at least. Let’s check the flavors.

I tried them individually at first, of course, because I’m such a rebel. I had a hard time distinguishing Sharp Cheddar from regular-flavored Cheetos, but I guess that makes sense. Regular Cheetos are already neon cheese-flavored, so why go through the trouble of making up a new flavor? I did detect a little bit of spice, but I think that’s from getting intimate with Salsa Picante in the bag. I could see little red dots on the Sharp Cheddar pieces where the powder had rubbed off onto them. This is why you shouldn’t put two flavors together in one bag; you don’t know what’s going on once you’ve vacuum sealed those two edges together. Cheetos be gettin’ freaky on the store shelves. This is making “sticky Cheeto fingers” even more unappealing.

Uh oh. I should have seen this coming. I should have known. I should have chosen Ragin’ Cajun & Tangy Ranch. I have chosen…unwisely.

SALSA PICANTE IS FLAMIN’ HOT CHEETOS! (Spoiler alert.) It’s not like I haven’t run into this before; Doritos has repackaged its Cool Ranch as just about every flavor under the sun. But usually they at least try to make something about one of the flavors a little bit different. Not so here. You know what Cheetos Mighty Zingers Sharp Cheddar & Salsa Picante Snacks really are? Cheetos All the Little Pieces You Find at the Bottom of the Bag That You Wind Up Throwing Away Cheese & Flamin’ Hot Cheese-Flavored Snacks.

I am outraged.

Maybe I shouldn’t be, but there are several factors here. First and most obvious is the recycling of the flavors. Then there’s the gimmick that “oh we made them small!”, when, seriously, these could just be leftover broken pieces from the factory for all I fucking know. The real coup de grace is that, unless you literally are pouring these directly from bag to mouth, they are practically impossible to eat. I’ve been snacking on the ones I poured out in the picture, and even my tiny, delicate, feminine fingers can’t manage to pick up more than one at once without Cheetos flying everywhere half the time. So I’m supposed to pour them into my hand, eh? Oh okay, let’s do that. Then I can lick the flavor powder off my palm like I’m cosplaying Chester fucking Cheetah grooming himself at a fucking furry convention. Okay, yes, I will stand in my kitchen with no pants on and pour these little fucking choking hazards that I could have gotten by buying two bags of differently-flavored Cheetos straight into my mouth, but you know what I won’t do? You know where this person, this person who has eaten AN ENTIRE SMOTHERED MEAT PATTY, draws the line? Licking my hand after eating handfuls of broken-up Cheetos, and then looking down to see my cat performing the same action. I just can’t go there. My cat also licks his own ass.

One more little factoid you should probably know about Cheetos Mighty Zingers Sharp Cheddar & Salsa Picante Snacks – Flamin’ Hot Cheetos turn your fingers red. For like, the rest of the fucking day. I don’t care how many times you wash your hands, your fingers tell the world, “I ate an inappropriate amount of an unhealthy spicy junk food.” Hence, if you eat these Mighty Zingers in handfuls, you’ll literally be caught red-handed. JUST LIKE I CAUGHT YOU RED-HANDED IN A WEB OF DECEIT, CHEETOS.

  • Score: 2 out of 5 broken bits of boring old Cheeto flavors in a stupid metallic bag
  • Price: $2.99
  • Size: 9 1/2 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: I dunno, just go read a regular bag of Cheetos and account for a “broken-up handful” serving size, I guess.
Junk Food

Cheetos Crunchy Wild White Cheddar Snacks

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Cheetos Wild White Cheddar SmallToday, we’re looking at Cheetos Crunchy Wild White Cheddar Snacks.  I like that they just call them “snacks” on the bag, because I was wondering what exactly to call them.  Chips?  Weird lumpy corn sticks?  No.  Snacks.  Cheetos is the Herb and Jamaal of the snack world.  Approximately one person reading this will understand that joke.

Cheetos are famous, of course, for being the favored snack of video game-playing nerds living in their mothers’ basements.  I don’t know how or why this happened, but it’s true.  Cheetos doesn’t really fuck around with flavors; there’s the classic orange, Flamin’ Hot, and a couple of other ones that nobody’s heard of or cares about.  Unlike Doritos, who releases a new flavor every two days, the original Cheetos are immediately what you’ll think of when you hear the name.  Cheetos.  Orange dust-covered fingers.  Nerds.

Cheetos Wild White Cheddar

But now there’s Wild White Cheddar, which, according to Frito-Lay’s official press release, has existed before.  I had never heard of them before, but Frito-Lay says it was a “popular flavor”, so I guess I’m just an asshole who hasn’t been paying attention.  It’s also available for a limited time only, starting in late January and ending mid-February.  That is, indeed, a very limited time.  Kind of makes you wonder why they’re releasing them at all.  Hardly seems worth the effort.  I guess they’re banking on tools like me, who will buy any junk food that has a limited run.  I can’t imagine there are that many of us out there.

I’m not entirely sure what makes this flavor so “wild”, but hey, I’m all for alliteration.  Chester does seem pretty damn enthusiastic about putting that Cheeto in his mouth, even though it actually seems larger than his already enormous mouth.  Actually, if you look closely, it looks like we’ve caught Chester in the act of tripping over a Wild White Cheddar Cheeto laying on the ground.  Maybe he’s reaching out desperately towards the Cheeto, trying to grab onto it in the hopes that it will stop his fall.  That Cheeto cannot help you, my friend.  Your face has a date with the floor.  Maybe he’ll get lucky and land on that wedge of white cheddar down there.  I could think of worse surfaces on which to perform a faceplant.

Cheetos Wild White Cheddar Back

Flipside gettin’ crazy with the fonts, yo.  It’s a little hard to read from the picture, so let me help you out:
CAUTION!
These CHEETOS snacks are DANGEROUSLY CHEESY
So if you need to keep your hands clean, don’t even THINK about opening this bag!
BUT…
if you’re willing to get some
WHITE
CHEESY
DELICIOUSNESS
all over your fingers, open up

AND ENJOY!

I can’t tell if they’re trying to entice me to eat the snacks or terrify me into running out of the chip aisle of my local grocery store, blathering incoherently about my hands being unclean, so unclean.  People with OCD, Wild White Cheddar Cheetos are not for you.  But you’ve probably already figured that out.

I’m also not very comfortable with the sentence “If you’re willing to get some WHITE CHEESY DELICIOUSNESS all over your fingers, open up and ENJOY!”  Think, Cheetos marketing team.  Just…just take a few moments in the meeting and think about the words that you are putting together to form a sentence.

Cheetos Wild White Cheddar Close-Up

Not much of a cheesy smell present when you open the bag.  What comes through more is the smell of corn meal, which is what Cheetos are made of.  It’s kind of weird to see Cheetos not dressed up in their signature neon orange powder.  The white cheddar powder is barely visible on the light yellow Cheeto, causing them to look naked.  I’m sorry you have to suffer this indignity, Cheetos.

The cheese taste in Wild White Cheddar Cheetos is much more subtle than it is in original Cheetos, and it’s also less tangy.  The snacks taste mostly like that generic artificial cheese flavor that you’d find on other foods, with just a hint of what could pass for white cheddar.  They’re not bad, but they’re not exactly exciting.  The more understated flavor of Wild White Cheddar means that more of the corn meal taste of the Cheeto comes through, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, I guess.  For me personally, it’s a negative.  Ninety percent of the time, when I’m eating a snack food, I consider the chip (or “snack”) to be nothing more than the delivery vessel for the flavor powder, and if it’s a naked chip, it belongs in a dip.  Maybe that makes me a jerk, I dunno.  That’s just the way I feel.

Cheetos Crunchy Wild White Cheddar Snacks are boring.  There, I said it.  If I had a serious hankering for a cheese-flavored snack and these were the only things available, yeah, I’d eat them.  Like I said, they’re not bad, they’re just old news in the flavor department.  Despite supposedly being white cheddar, they end up tasting like just another artificially cheese-flavored product.  On the plus side, the white powder won’t stain your fingers like original Cheetos (or especially Flamin’ Hots) will, so you don’t have to hide the secret shame that you’ve recently been shoving Cheetos down your maw.

According to Frito-Lay, these snacks are only going to be available for a couple more weeks.  So if you have a burning desire to see for yourself what mediocrity can taste like, you better move fast.

  • Score: 2 out of 5 teeth knocked out of Chester’s mouth after his fall
  • Price: $2.99
  • Size: 8 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: White cheesy deliciousness all over your fingers.  That doesn’t really have anything to do with nutrition, I just wanted to type it again.