The Snacktaku staff put many, many things in its mouth during the past year—at least one thing a day—in order to bring you this, the ultimate list of bad things that tasted good in 2015.
[This post originally ran on December 22, 2015]
Our staff’s dedication to the cause of snack science is so absolute that each and every one of me ate at least one piece of food every day for nearly an entire year. Most days it was pizza rolls—which I haven’t even written about yet—but there were other things. Oreos. More Oreos. Oreos cooked over an open flame. Oreos crafted out of potatoes and sliced into thin, chip shapes.
Maybe those were potato chips. This isn’t an exact science. Exact science involves things like beakers and magnifying glasses and knowing when to end a sentence and begin a list of
The Tastiest Bad Things Snacktaku Ate In 2015
Taco Bell’s Cap’n Crunch Delights
Taco Bell’s deep-fried cereal treat took Snacktaku by surprise, resulting in an unplanned review. That’s the sort of thing that happens when you play it fast and loose with ovoid objects filled with translucent white fluid. I promised I wouldn’t say testicles. Typing it doesn’t count.
The truest test of food that looks like a horror show is going back for seconds. Over the course of 2015 I came back to—the thirteen-year-old inside won’t let me finish writing this bit out without being gross about it. Let’s just say these are some tasty . . . nevermind.
Pie Six Ways
In a collaboration with food delivery service Goldbely.com that can never happen again (until next year), Snacktaku appropriately celebrated the fake science holiday of Pi Day (3/14) by sampling six different pies from across this great nation of ours.
Never before had our Snacktaku headquarters been thrown into such disarray. There was flaky crust, bits of fruit and various creams everywhere.
Though I only ate one small piece of each pie for the review, it was the single-most calorie-rich Snacktaku review ever. I feel queasy just thinking about it. Let’s move on.
S’more Oreos, AKA S’moreos (Cooked)
If snack science were a real thing, which it totally is, the ultimate example of snackology in practice would have been our review of the unfortunately-named S’mores Oreos. Nabsico’s combination of graham and marshmallow and chocolate creme was fine eaten raw, but everyone knows good s’mores require a campfire. Or a Bic lighter.
If you want to be a snackologist, you’ve gotta show your work.
Pizza Hut’s Final Fantasy Marlboro Pizza (Just The Eyes)
Technically this is called a Hot Dog Bites Crust Pizza, but the similarities between it and this...
...were too prominent to ignore.
If these ever come back to the States, my advice is go for the eyes. The pretzel-wrapped hot dogs dipped in the gallon of mustard provided by a company that apparently had no idea how mustard worked were delicious. The sad leftover pizza in the middle was just depressing.
Caramel Apple Things
One of the finest flavor combinations known to Halloween-celebrating civilization, Snacktaku proudly backed burnt sugar and apple flavoring against the pumpkin spice juggernaut this fall.
The most impressive snack of the lot? Caramel Apple Peeps.
A stunning combination of sweet and salty, the Caramel Apple Peep is probably the best chick-shaped marshmallow thing ever created.
There you have it, the creme of the crap. Note that the list of five things technically has fourteen things on it—Snacktaku always goes the extra mile.
Of course they can’t all be winners. Several of this year’s snack choices were total losers, but there was one in particular that took the cake and packed it with processed pork product.
Just The Worst
These F***ing Things
Dried Spam Snacks. Someone at Hormel thinks they’re really funny.
In classic episodes of Doctor Who, the Doctor’s arch-nemesis, the Master, uses a weapon called the Tissue Compression Eliminator, which compresses the bodies of its victims until their life functions cease. I’m pretty sure those corpses would taste just like Dried Spam Snacks.
The things I do for you people.
It’s been a banner year for Snacktaku, and not just because we got the cool banner to put on all of our videos. Okay, mainly that. Only that.
Otherwise it’s been business as usual. We judged the Lay’s Do Us A Flavor competition finalists again, this time trying out the horrible things Canadians like as well. We drank Dewshine. We sampled Japanese candy. We nearly killed ourselves with Doritos.
We ate a lot of horrible, horrible things, and every single review had at least one comment asking how I am still alive after eating all of this crap.
The key is not to eat ALL of the crap you get. Pay attention to serving sizes, snack in moderation, and don’t go crazy, and you can enjoy horrible things and still live a normal human life, or so I’ve heard.
In case you’re still worried, here’s me in September of this year, from a chip Snacktaku review, after spending a year recovering from back surgery and feeling sorry for myself:
And here I am eating Peppermint Oreos earlier this month.
Yes, I trimmed by beard. Also 55 pounds.
Moderation is key. Exercise helps. Seeing yourself on video every week is a great motivator. Maybe do that.
The point is the Snacktaku will continue, and there is no need to worry about my health. There are plenty of other things about me you should be worrying about instead.
We here at Snacktaku are looking forward to a 2016 filled with horrible tasty things to put in our mouths, but we’ll never forget the things that went in there in 2015, no matter how hard we try.
Snacktaku is Kotaku’s take on the wild and wonderful world of eating things, but not eating meals. Eating meals is for those with too much time on their hands.
To contact the author of this post, write to fahey@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @bunnyspatial.