9 Surprising Things You Didn't Know About Your Favorite Snack Foods

Snacks | Food

9 Surprising Things You Didn't Know About Your Favorite Snack Foods

How well do you know all the tasty treats you drop into your grocery cart every week? No, we don't expect you to name all the long, complicated ingredients that your favorite snack foods are made from, we're talking about the secret origins and histories behind those treats.

Some of these snacks have been on store shelves for over 100 years, and that means there's more to them than their colorful packaging.

You'll never look at your favorite chips, candy bars and cookies again after reading this list!

1. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

These delicious snacks used to be known as "Penny Cups," because they would only cost one cent per cup - yes, really! While we wish we could bring back those old prices, but to be fair it does seem like the cups have gotten bigger over the years. Oh, and by the way: it's not pronounced "ree-sees."

2. Kit Kat

How many Kit Kat flavors can you name? No, you shouldn't feel bad if you can't name any. In the states, the only special version of the Kit Kat that's fairly common is the peanut butter flavored bar, but in Japan there are hundreds of flavors of this snack. If you're brave enough you can even sample soy sauce, green tea or cheese flavored bars.

3. Breakfast Cereal

Believe it or not, cereal is made from fruit. Cereal is a type of grass that grows a grain - the same way a tree grows an apple - and it's technically a fruit. Still, we wouldn't exactly call Cinnamon Toast Crunch - America's most popular cereal - a fruit salad.

4. Oreo

Since they debuted in 1912, these have been the best-selling cookies in America, and more than 450 billion cookies have been sold worldwide. They haven't changed much throughout the years, with the same ratio of cookie to cream in every cookie - 71% to 29%. As for "Double-Stuf" Oreos, don't be fooled: they're really just 1.86 times bigger. Talk about false advertising!

Click the next page for more food facts, including why Pringles aren't actually potato chips!

5. Pringles

Are Pringles your favorite kind of potato chip? If you said "yes," you're wrong. They're not potato chips at all. While 40% of a Pringle is made from potato, the chips are mostly made from rice corn and wheat starch. Just look on the packaging: they're always referred to as "potato crisps," not chips.

The special ingredients are necessary to keep the Pringles in their fancy shape, which is called a hyperbolic parabaloid.

It took inventor Frederic Baur years to make the perfect crisp, which explains why he chose to have his ashes buried in a Pringles can after he died.

6. Pop-Tarts

Most people think that the "pop" in Pop-Tarts is included because of how they pop out of your toaster when they're ready. In fact, these sugary breakfast squares were released in the '60s, and their name was supposed to capitalize on Pop-Art, the colorful art trend made famous by painters like Andy Warhol.

7. Cheetos

If you love the Flamin' Hot version of this cheesy snack, you can thank Richard P. Montañez. Montañez worked as a janitor at a Cheetos plant when he first got the idea to dust crunchy Cheetos with chili powder. He pitched his idea to excecutives, and today Flamin' Hot Cheetos are the best-selling version of the snack. And Montañez? He's now an executive at PepsiCo, the company that makes Cheetos.

8. Planter's Peanuts

This snack is probably more famous for its dapper mascot, Mr. Peanut, than for its taste. The fancy peanut was drawn by a 14-year-old boy named Antonio Gentile for a contest to pick the brand's mascot in 1916. Since then Mr. Peanut has starred in thousands of ad campaigns and was voiced by Robert Downey Jr., while Gentile was paid just $5 for his sketch.

9. Lays Chips

Lays has been around since 1932, and that means the company has a lot of "firsts" in the food world. Like how they were the first food company to buy television commercials. Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz, helped introduced the brand's famous slogan.

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