Junk Fud and You - Candy and Junk Food Social Media & Why I Don't Like It

 Today I'm talking about social media and in particular the reason I don't follow as many junk food, candy and snacking social media companies as you might think.

Canadian National Exhibition - A Deep Fried Adventure

Every year in Toronto, Canada there's a big event known as the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE). The CNE originally was like the national fair of Canada. It would happen after each province and county in Canada had their local fairs with the goal of getting the best of the best of these fairs and merging them together as one. The main feature used to be the judging of prize winning livestock, foods and fruits and vegetables. There would also be butter carving competitions and other events. However since it was also a fair, there were rides, games and a other fun attractions for people to enjoy. The CNE was Canada's biggest fair, and it was something I would look forward to each and every year.

Today the CNE is a little different. The main difference is that they've moved the farm judging to another time (a few weeks before). While there is a small portion still dedicated to farm animals and country life, most of the fair is selling things like crafts and home goods, rides, and carnival food. It used to be my number one reason for going the CNE was the farm stuff, now I find my main focus is the food. Apparently I'm not the only one.

The CNE has developed a reputation for some weird food choices, but most importantly almost every choice of food is not healthy at all. It's as if the CNE has become all of Toronto's cheat day when it comes to eating. This year was no exception for me as I ate some pretty unhealthy treats. Here's everything I ate at the CNE this year, and how it rated:

I started out with some deep fried cheese curd (sorry I didn't take a photo, I was too hungry). Deep fried cheese curd is basically like mozzarella sticks only smaller. The coating on them was nicely seasoned, and like mozzarella sticks they came with a marinera sauce which worked really well. This was a great way to start my morning and warm me up for what was to come.

The second thing I ate was deep fried pizza. When I first heard about the deep fried pizza at the CNE, my assumption was that it would just be a slice of pizza stuck in a deep fryer. Instead it was a heavily battered slice of pizza, deep fried and then covered in Doritos. They also offered several toppings like garlic sauce and hot honey, but I just went plain. It was pretty good, but I think the pizza could have used more tomato sauce and cheese.

Next I had what I consider to be a CNE classic, Tiny Tom Donuts. I've written about these delicious little deep fried treats before and they did not disappoint this year. My friends and I came up with a theory about these donuts this year. We believe that these donuts have the shortest shelf life of any donut in the world. If you eat them within 20 minutes of buying them, they're great. If you wait beyond the 20 minutes they're not so great. We also noticed this year that they offer several new flavours including a strawberry powder, but we stuck with the classics cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar.

After we finished our donuts, we headed into the midway where we discovered a spot where they were giving away free Nerds Gummy Clusters. The good news is that they gave me a pack of one of the flavours I'd never reviewed before. The bad news for you is that you'll have to wait for the official review to find out what I thought about them.

After some fun adventures as well as a Toronto Argos football game, we decided it was dinner time. We went to an area where they had a bunch of food trucks, and I was certain that I would get myself something a little more sensible for dinner. Then I saw this beast of a chicken sandwich and I just couldn't say no. What I ate (pictured above) is a Biscoff-fried chicken crunch ice cream sandwich. What it is a chicken sandwich deep fried with a Biscoff cookie coating. It's then covered in a hot honey, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and covered in Biscoff cookie bits. It really seems like something that shouldn't work, but it does. It is sweet, a little spicy, but also cooled off well from the ice cream. I ate the whole thing and didn't regret it at all, but I did start craving a salad by this point.

To end the day we decided to pick up one of the newer carnival classics, some deep fried Oreo cookies. I keep remembering that I enjoy these deep fried delights, but each time I eat them I'm still amazed at how well this works. The cookie and the icing melt perfectly in the batter to create something that does taste like an Oreo, but doesn't feel like one. 

At the end of the day I realized two things. First of all each and every thing (except the nerds) that I ate was deep fried. The second thing I realized is that I did not eat a single vegetable. Let's just say that for the next week I'll be eating salads exclusively. It was however a great day at the CNE, me and my friends shared some amazing treats, and none of us got sick. The deep fried Oreo cookies and Tiny Tom Donuts remain a favourite, but the Biscoff-fried chicken crunch ice cream sandwich was an amazing surprise.

Ever Wonder Why I Might Not Review Something?

 Today I decided to explain why I don't review each and every treat that I come across.

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Eating Food From Swedish Chefs

 On this Episode of Junk Fud on the Road, Allison and Chris talk about meatballs, cinnamon buns, and all the other delights they discovered in Sweden.

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Junk Fud on the Road in Qatar

This is the second part of our journey to the Middle East. In the first episode we visited Oman, this time we went to Qatar, although the focus is really on Doha,

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Is Carnival Food Too Much?

 I feel like the world of carnival food has changed a great deal over the last decade or so. As a person that gets sick on rides, the average carnival only offers me two things really. First of all it offers me a chance to look at life in the more rural areas of the world, secondly it offers me food. In particular carnivals offer me food that I can't really find outside of the carnival gate. I always have a great time visiting carnivals, and in particular tasting the food (despite my stomach aches afterwards).

Having said that, not all carnival food is equal. There are two categories of carnival food that I really love. The first is the local specialty. Often carnivals will offer food that is made local by people who may sell their treats and meals at around the area where the carnival takes place. These can be anything from baked goods to specialty meats, even some local restaurants might pop in now and again. Food trucks have also made their presence known in many carnivals, and it's great. It actually seems like the last place in the world where chain restaurants are not the leaders of the food industry. While I've seen a few chain restaurants with stalls at carnivals, most of them don't really have long lines. 

The other food I love from carnivals is the classic carnival treats. These are often simple treats that give zero interest in nutritional value. Most of these classic carnival foods focus on your primal instinct to consume carbs, sugar and fat. It could be a waffle ice cream sandwich.

A corn dog with mustard, an essential topping I might add.

Or the only essential thing for us to get every time we visit a carnival, the mini doughnuts (from Tiny Tom Donuts whenever possible). These classic carnival foods prove that dietary rules do not count at the fair, and any stomach ache you might have afterwards came from being in the sun too long or too many rides on the Gravitron and not the amazing amount of fat you just consumed.

There is one type of food however that always makes me nervous at carnivals. It's the over the top stunt food that seems like it just shouldn't work (above is a deep fried Twinkie that just didn't taste great).  While I like over the top food, I have a problem with the latest trends in this kind of food at carnivals. First of all I feel like many of the options are not going to surprise you in how good they actually are.

Take for example this recent treat available at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. Ketchup and Mustard flavoured ice cream. I saw several videos and post of people trying it out, and almost all of them didn't really like it that much. It makes sense, it doesn't really seem like something people would like. The second problem with this is that unlike many carnival foods, stunt foods like these are often very expensive. I believe each cone costs around 12 dollars. It became a treat for social media influencers with a bit of extra money. I don't totally hate the idea of stunt food at carnivals, but I feel like some foods are a little bit outside the carnival spirit. Don't dare me to eat something at a carnival, make something so weird, yet so tempting that you have to dare me not to buy it.

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Another Round Of Questions

 These three questions (although one is more a comment) are a little more obscure than some of the other common questions I get, but I do get them pretty regularly.

Make sure to follow me on YouTube to keep up with all my fun videos.

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Time For More Travels, This Time The Ukraine

In this episode of Junk Fud on the Road, Allison talks about her solo trip to the Ukraine. She was only there for a few days, but she did get to try the world famous salo. (Note - This episode was recorded before the current situation in Ukraine)

Make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to keep up with all our adventures.

You can listen to every single past episode of Junk Fud on the Road as well.

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Time To Hit The Road In Syracuse

This episode of Junk Fud on the Road was recorded right after our first exploration across the boarder to America since the Covid shutdown. It was great to have some American classics and to see all the fun things we'd missed before.

If you want to keep up with all our adventure, make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

You can also follow us on YouTube to see all the past episodes of all our podcasts and videos shows.

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A New Episode Of Junk Fud on the Road All About Bulk Barn

For this special episode of Junk Fud on the Road, Allison and Chris talk about their favourite stop before any road trip Bulk Barn.

Keep up with all my travels and the snacks I eat on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Be sure to check out my Patreon too.

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It's A New Episode of Junk Fud and You All About Fast Food

In this episode of Junk Fud and You I talk about some international fast food places you may have never tried before. Sure it's a little hard to travel now, but when things clear up you'll want to check some of these places out.

Tell me your favourite fast food place on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Also be sure to check out my micro comic called Snack Facts.

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It's A New Episode Of Junk Fud On The Road From Laos

This is a place we've visited twice, and each time we fall in love with it again. It's not just a fun place to visit, there's some very unique and tasty foods to explore as well.

Click here to keep up with all our adventure on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Also be sure to check out our Patreon page to get previews of all our podcasts.

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Thing That You Should Buy - Grandpa Witmer's Old Fashioned Nut Butter Mixer

It's rare that I post something on this blog that is at all useful, however I would argue that every house in the world should have one of these.

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy - Lucky Charms Marshmallows

If you had told me when I was a child that as an adult I would have the ability to purchase a bag of Luck Charms without the cereal bits, I probably would have skipped my depressed punk rock phase and just looked at the future as the greatest thing that was ever going to happen.

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy For Me For My Birthday - Baby Shark Cereal

I want to eat Baby Shark cereal do-do-do-do-dooooo.

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I'm Thinking Again, And Eating Breakfast

In this episode of Chris's Monthly Morning Breakfast Thoughts, I drink a really weird blue drink. I also talk about the candy and junk food news from the last month, as well as the new updates on candycritic.org.

Make sure to check out our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feed to find out about all the stuff we mentioned on this episode.

If you followed us on Patreon than you'd already have seen this video a few days ago.

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We Had Some Thoughts And Ate Some Breakfast

On this months episode of Chris's Monthly Morning Breakfast Thoughts, Chris talks about all the news from August, as well as what's happening in September on Candy Critic.

If you want to keep up with the news, and what's happening on Candy Critic, make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

You can also join us on Patreon for a bunch more stuff.

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We Got A New Episode Of Junk Fud On The Road - Cambodia

This is a bit of a strange episode because we've been living in Cambodia now for two years. So I like to think that we've seen through a bit of the veneer, and we might even have some expertise on the subject of Cambodian food.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with all our day to day fun.

You can also follow us on YouTube to be notified whenever we put out a new podcast or video.

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The Month Begins With Some Of My Thoughts

In this episode of our Monthly Morning Breakfast thoughts, I talk about some news, like the Cheetos swimwear line and Canada Post's new dessert themed stamps. I also talk about some of the new blogs coming to this very blog throughout July. But best of all I talk about a new cookie I invented, and tell you how you can get the recipe.

If you want to keep up with all our videos, make sure to follow us on YouTube.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to find out what we're working on.

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It's Time For Another Episode Of Junk Fud On The Road - The Netherlands

Holland, is one of the nicest places you can visit. It's full of nature, cool people, and cool people walking through nature. It's also a great place to eat some really fine food. The Netherlands is a country where almost everything you eat feels safe from a North American perspective. It's likely because much of the food from that area is part of the culture in North America as well.

Click here to check out old episodes of Junk Fud On The Road.

And make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with what we're up to right now.

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