9 dodgy snacks you wouldn’t eat today

Ready for a somewhat grumpy trip down memory lane? Our childhood was probably filled with long-forgotten treats and treats that were once cherished prizes at the end of a long school day, or surprise treasure found in our lunch boxes. But much like the green and purple Heinz EZ Squirt Ketchup and Spaghetti-O’s, time has allowed us to reminisce about our favorite snacks with a more critical eye.

There has been and always will be a time and a place for snacks that we know aren’t good for us, but love nonetheless. Much of the appeal had nothing to do with the nutritional facts, but rather the fun colors or inventive packaging that came with these treats.

Maybe our taste buds have changed over the years, and what was once delicious is now extremely sweet. Or maybe as we got older we just became more aware of what the nutrition labels on our foods actually mean.

Whatever the reason, there are plenty of once-popular snacks that we might have had a little meltdown on if our parents hadn’t bought them for us back then. Nowadays, you pass through the store without hardly noticing it. Here are several examples:

RELATED: 14 ​​Once-Popular Grocery Items You Wouldn’t Touch Today

Let’s start strong with pure sugar which we actually thought was considered a viable snack in our childhood. We know kids seem to have an affinity for all things sweet, but something made us pour sugar-filled paper straws into our mouths, and we called it a snack. Pixy Stix came in different flavors to create the illusion that we were eating something different from one colored straw to the next, but as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20.

Also known as “Nik L Nip”, these tiny wax bottles were filled with syrups of different flavors. But not only were these wax bottles not the best nutritionally and only filled with liquefied sugar, you actually had to work to enjoy them. You had to bite off the top of the bottle before you could access the “juice”. Then, if you were feeling really adventurous, you could continue chewing the bottle of wax to your heart’s content.

Candy cigarettes were just plain wrong in many ways, including the bizarre concept of thinking that giving your young children a fake cigarette to “smoke” was a good idea. North Dakota even banned candy for a time in the 1950s and 1960s, according to a 2000 journal article cataloged by the National Library of Medicine. Ethics aside, the once popular candy didn’t even taste good! Essentially a small cylinder of chalk, this is a snack that many people were probably happy to see thrown on the sidewalk.

Maybe you remember Candy Buttons by one of their many other names, like Candy Dots or Pox. The pea-sized dots of colorful candy were glued to waxed paper, which in our childhood probably looked a mile long. You can stock up on Candy Buttons on sites like Old Time Candy, but you might be better off remembering the candies as a distant memory rather than throwing a few away and remembering they weren’t. not the tastiest of sweets.6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

Cheese is a much-loved food, which makes it an even greater offense when it’s tampered with and reduced to a dip of questionable consistency. While the Ritz Crackers N’ Cheese Handi Snacks were definitely an easy treat to throw in our lunchboxes, we’re willing to bet it’s been a hot minute since you last tried them. As kids we marveled at the thought of picking up a little plastic red stick as an applique for cheese, and if we’re being honest, it was probably one of those situations where the crackers just served as a container for the cheese dip. .

It was a good day when you opened your lunchbox and discovered that your parents had slipped a packet of Dunkaroos inside. Miniature graham cracker-esque cookies that came with their own side of funfetti or chocolate icing have started making a bit of a comeback in recent years, leading many of us to rediscover the long-forgotten sweet treat. But some things are best left in the past, and as an adult you may finally realize how deeply mediocre and overly sweet Dunkaroos are.

The hostess is no stranger to highly processed sweets, but back then nutritional value meant very little to us as kids. All that mattered was whether or not there was a box of Twinkies waiting for us when we got home from school. The iconic dessert came in a variety of flavors, including banana, cotton candy, and even pumpkin spice. Baked desserts are still guilty pleasures for many of us, but we can’t help but scratch our heads and wonder why we seem so indifferent to the 47 grams of carbohydrates we consume in each serving.

For a tastier snack that always came to us after school, Hot Pockets were a popular option. Flavors included Pepperoni Pizza, Philly Steak, and Buffalo Chicken. These are still available today if you want to brave the boiling hot filling that would totally burn your tongue time and time again. But as curious as you may be, keep in mind that Hot Pockets are absolutely not good for you, and besides, they aren’t that tasty to begin with. Few snacks can beat the convenience and affordability of a Hot Pocket, but as one Redditor noted, “Hot Pockets are revolting and inedible, and I don’t understand how everyone seems to love them.”

If you were a kid sipping your glass bottle of Yoo-hoo thinking you were drinking chocolate milk, think again. Yoo-hoo is quick to say it’s just a “chocolate flavored drink,” but you’re probably better off drinking a real glass of chocolate milk when it comes to nutritional value. When your first two ingredients listed are water and high fructose corn syrup, you’re essentially sipping a glass of highly processed sugar water. If you love all things chocolate, you probably already know that you can do so much better.

Carly Terzigni