On our way to Springfield over the weekend, Jeff and I stopped at a convenient store for gas and a snack. I went to pick up a .99 cent bag of Funyuns (the road trip snack of champions), but they were out. Instead, I picked up a bag of “Sabritones”, a Chili & Lime “Puffed Wheat Snack”. Here is a picture of the bag.
Back on the road and after popping a couple of these chips into my mouth, I realized I was taking three drinks to every one chip consumed, mostly to wash the horrid taste out of my mouth. Since these chips were so horrible, I offered one to Jeff (hey, that’s what friends do) and he confirmed that, indeed, they were awful.
The chips are so horrible in fact, that Jeff and I decided that “Chili and Lime” either meant “someone ate some chili, pooped in this bag, and then covered the smell with lime”, or “this is what the sewers of Chile smell like after people have eaten limes.” Either way, the chips are dreadful.
So dreadful, in fact, that I saved them. When Robb Sherwin climbed into my truck I offered him one, and even though the car was beginning to move, his default instinct was to try to open the door and get out of the car! YES THEY ARE THAT BAD! It’s too bad the word “epic” is overused these days, because this snack is epically bad.
I even saved a few chips for Susan, who after eating one, told me, “that may be the most disgusting snack I have ever eaten in my life. Ever.”
Congratulations, Chili and Lime flavored Sabritones, for being the worst snack on the face of the Earth. Coming from someone who has eaten a LOT of snacks in his lifetime, this is no trivial achievement.
There is no possible way anyone did any consumer testing on those puffy crotch weevils at any point, from product development to when they were placed on the shelf. And they are INSTANTLY terrible as well. This isn’t one of those things where you realize it’s terrible only once you’ve fully committed, like an Irish car bomb or, more generally, communism. They are reprehensible from the very beginning.
This story reminds me of a party I attended in college in which my soon-to-be best friend/boyfriend had brought a bag of jalapeno-flavored chips. I took one bite and had to go spit it out. It was horrendous too. That was back in 1993 and it was only a few months ago that I actually dared to taste other jalapeno-flavored chips.
I’m sure the trauma you imposed on your friends will live on infamously!
You should run a tournament table at OVGE where the winner gets nothing, but the losers have to eat these. There’s motivation for ya.
You did the right thing by having other people tasting them too. What’s the point in really bad food unless everybody has some?
Any type of snack that can be construed as a “puffy crotch weevil” is an automatic no-go. I salute you in keeping the front lines of snacking safe for the rest of us.
See, Sabritones is owned by Frito-Lays and depending on your region, you may stumble into a metric ton of different kinds of those types of chips. I will touch none of these flavors because they all contain some kind of chili spice, something that makes my mouth catch on fire for far too long. If you’d like i’d be glad to send you some alternate flavors for all your friends!
Who, I ask, who are the focus group they are marketing these puffy crotch weevils to?
After I read your story, I googled sabritones. The youtube videos about them are so strange! There are sabritones fanatics out there!!!
What a bunch of wusses You all must be from the east coast. Toughen up. Sabritons are a good snack food, and much better for you than those other things.
Hating Sabritones is a sure sign of a bland palate and a life lived without adventure. Destroy the walls, my friends. Sabritones are delicious, and are a gustatory adventure from start to finish. You sound like children who refuse to explore new flavors, their faces scrunched into hate-balls reflexively.
Enjoy your lives of mashed-potato blandness; I’m using my limited time alive to taste everything.