Childhood field trips. Family vacations. Game day. That time your college boyfriend told you he was exploring a different gender. These are the occasions best paired with a bag of chips.
Conjure the nostalgic chip bags of your youth, probably located in the background of a sleepover group photo or displayed as prominent product placement in a sitcom. You can see their crinkly faces, like a family member.
All to say, some of us find considerable emotional depth in a bag of chips. Which is why the SunChips brand presents such moments of profound betrayal for me.
“Care for some SunChips?” comes a friendly offer. The heart leaps; not from cholesterol, oh no. From the joy of being offered such a perfect, delicious and expensive snack. And quickly, the fear: what color will the chip bag be?
Below is my complete assessment of the SunChips Flop Spectrum, an astounding range of flavors from one wavy, seductive whole-grain snack.
Red Bag = Disgusting Flop: Garden Salsa
It’s my first red eye flight and I am seated next to my partner after a lovely anniversary trip to Hawaii. We’re maybe an hour in and a baby begins to stir from beyond my right shoulder. I turn my focus to deciphering the snack options rattled off by the flight attendant.
Eventually she reaches me. By this time the baby volume has increased considerably but I persevere to interpret the list: “cookies, quinoa crisp or SunChips?”
I had not witnessed a single SunChips taker, which I thought was preposterous. But then I caught a glimpse of the red bag. Of course an airline was offering its economy passengers only the most vile variety of SunChips on the market.
Garden Salsa SunChips smell like if a wet burrito wore a flip flop to a music festival for two frugal days. I can’t vouch for their flavor, because these puppies never make it past my nose. Apparently a few people did choose this foul free flight food because the unmistakable smell filled the cabin. I swear it made the baby cry louder.
Believe it or not, the inferior variety of SunChips was not our only hurdle during air travel. Did you know the privilege of re-booking your flight is now reserved for upper tier tickets only? Inexplicably, the airline had a customer satisfaction survey waiting in my email by the time I straggled in the door. The timing left me feeling inspired.
Several minutes later, with my suitcase and sun hat scattered around my PC, I wrap up my candid review of my recent flight with a sentiment something like, Garden Salsa SunChips are the worst possible snack to offer when stuck in a tube with strangers. Unless wellness influencers have convinced us to start eating chicken manure.
To bolster my research for this piece, I frolicked in various junk food subreddits. I was horrified to find so many Garden Salsa fans, including those who insist you must REFRIGERATE these chips. Is there any better evidence to the nastiness of this chip than people going to such great lengths to make them edible? A caveat to the research: these are folks who pipe up on Reddit.
The beauty of SunChips lies in their simple yet distinct, whole-grain flavor and groovy shape. The Garden Salsa variety smothers both of these qualities with their overwhelming flavor. These chips fail in its misguided quest to satisfy the Flaming Hot masses.
Top 5 Uses for Garden Salsa SunChips:
1. Ward off vampires
2. Provide sensory stimulation by crushing individual SunChips with the back of a wooden spoon. Also try wiggling those compostable extra-crinkly bags
3. Torture airline passengers
4. Distract from an open grease trap at a Mexican restaurant
5. Secret Santa gift for someone you despise
Green Bag = Relatively Inoffensive: French Onion
Funyuns in a ballgown.
Orange Bag = A Distant Second: Harvest Cheddar
While ranking a distant second-best may seem unnecessarily harsh, Harvest Cheddar is second not just to the #1 SunChip described below. Harvest Cheddar ranks second, period.
If I find myself in a sandwich shop and feeling like an extravagant little princess, I will spring for those six chips in that tiny bag. Here is my strategy:
1. Blue Bag SunChips
2. Orange Bag SunChips
If these are not present, I will start to reconsider. However, worthy options may still remain:
3. Cheetos
In a dire chip situation like this, I will usually grieve and move on. If I am in desperate need of crunch with my mayonnaise, I may entertain:
4. Kettle Chips (salt and vinegar OR barbeque)
So thus, Harvest Cheddar is the second-best SunChip and also just the second-best chip out there, period. The delicate cheese-like flavor shakes hands with the whole-grain essence of the SunChip, a hallmark of the best SunChips. The aforementioned icky flavors prefer to dropkick you with flavor, which is not the point here. Doritos exist.
Harvest Cheddar, you are a noble and worthy chip. However, there is simply no comparison to
Blue Bag = The Ultimate Chip: Original Sun Chips
The amount of memories I have attached to these chips is absurd. Or maybe inspiring. That, reader, is up to you.
On the rare occasion we picked up Subway as a kid, and even rarer that I was able to order something other than the dubious meatball, my automatic choice was those round turkey sandwiches of its 90s kids meal and blue Sun Chips. I ate these chips nearly every single lunch on my college meal plan.
If, as an adult, I find myself at a farming robot convention or the grocery price dips below $3, I am grabbing as many bags of blue SunChips as I can before arousing suspicion.
These chips are wholly satisfying with a nutty aftertaste and just enough salt. Their simple flavor is hearty but unassuming, meaning these chips complement everything while not being greasy. As chips go, they are relatively “healthy” while not tasting like the air a full-fat chip has left behind.
Blue SunChips exhibit their superiority by their ability to stand on their own as the “original” flavor of its variety. Potato chips, tortilla chips, corn chips – they all are exponentially better with dip. You could say a dip is required for those other original flavors. But a dip would soil a SunChip. I would never dare.
Unlike other chips that fall victim to tinkering with their formula, the Blue SunChips have remained relatively unchanged for 40 years. You can depend on Blue SunChips. The only major formula change we have endured from Blue SunChips was their boisterous foray into compostable bags. Modern sustainability icons.
You know how Lupita Nyong’o earned an Academy Award for her film debut in 12 Years a Slave? Original SunChips are the Lupita Nyong’o of chips. And they both look spectacular in blue.
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