Monday, April 13, 2009

Crisps'n'Chips, or: Disappointment in the snack aisle

I'm not a sweet tooth guys. Give me the choice between a bag of crispy, crackly, salty, savoury chips and melty, sweetling sickerly chocolate, it's the Smith's every time.

So as I decided which bag I was going to have for breakfast yesterday (perhaps your Easter comprises chocolating; mine is all about indulging in my favourite naughty foods and that just happens to come in a foil packet) I glanced at the back of the Smith's Salt'n'Vinegar - previously veganised - and saw that both the crinkle and thin cut varieties now contain lactose.

It's my firm belief that the world can be divided into two kinds of people: salt'n'vinegar, and everyone else (and also into cooks and bakers). I have always been everyone else - pre-vegan nothing made me happier than some cheese'n'onion or, joy of joys on a hungover morning, a huge bag of Doritos (in the red packet only and often with a 7-11 egg salad sandwich) - but post-vegan I have become more of a semi-salt'n'vinegar fan, mostly to break the monotony of the plain I usually get as they're almost always vegan except-for-Tasty-Jack's-wtf (I know about Kettle Chilli and the light'n'tangy kind they do, but, like Red Rock Deli, sometimes I just don't want deli style chips - I want rubbish).

So this has come as a bit of a blow and a significant reduction in the range of late-night-drunken-walks-home-past-the-7-11 snacks available to me. Thank God that Kristy recently put me on to the ninja vegan (*(c) Lena) Coles BBQ, but I'm feeling pretty low and rejected by Smith's at the moment.
Frankly, in today's chemical flavoured world I don't really understand why any actual ingredients at all have to go into chip flavouring, but I can academically understand why there might be milk solids in sweet chilli'n'sour cream, or meaty extracts in BBQ, or honey chicken in honey soy chicken - but lactose in salt'n'vinegar? S'n'V is the antithesis of dairy! It's sharp and biting and like an acid drop it should have nothing to do with creamy, smooth cow milk!

Please take it out Smith's. Please consider removing all dairy and meaty flavours from the rest of your chips too - it' s not like you're pedaling a nutritionally sound product anyway so a few more chemicals won't hurt you and you would be saving lotsa animabubbles and you would become the ultimate all-time superspecial ninja vegan company (although perhaps I wouldn't eat dead chicken flavoured stuff anyways even if it was all fake) and especially please consider a vegan cheese'n'onion. I can personally guarantee a significantly embarrassing number of sales.

8 comments:

Léna, said...

i thought coles brand salt n vinegar was safe-for-vegan-consumption too?

my old favourite flavour of the red dock deli chips used to be pepper and lime but it contains buttermilk!?!?! i don't understand this at all.
at all.

Miss T said...

Probably - I was just so entranced by the BBQ! And you have to actually go to Coles, which requires pre-planning, which is not consistent with 3am staggers home. Boo! (This post has really made me sound like an alcoholic. I don't actually drink that much; it's just that when I'm sober I usually have enough self-control to avoid chips, but I can justify *anything* when I'm pished!)

VeganWoman said...

I feel your pain! Sometimes I am in those aisles for a long time reading ingrediants gradually becoming irritated enough that I leave the aisle refusing to get anything. Even more irritating is by the time I find something decent it is extremely over priced. Why are Frito Lays 30% of the cost of chips that won't kill you. It is insulting! Great post!

x said...

Coles BBQ chips are vegan? I'm not even a huge bbq chip fan but now I want some because I can!

I usually stick with Red Rock Sea Salt but after awhile I get sick of plain chips. And the S&V Veggie chips just aren't the same.

And I like the term 'animabubbles' so I hope you won't be copyrighting it so I can use it all the time :p

Mallorca said...

amazing...........

Miss T said...

Wow, did I just get a comment from an geographical entity?

lisa said...

The buttermilk thing gets me! WTF?! Emily and I were discussing fancy chips in a shop in Queenscliff a while back. I casually picked up a packet and discovered they have buttermilk as an ingredient. No seriously, WTF?!

Rose said...

vegan cheese'n'onion...that would be pure awesomeness!
I noticed too that smiths s&v now arent vegan :(