Should I Even Buy Spicy Snacks?

Probably one of my biggest weaknesses of being a snack/candy critic is the fact that I don't really like spicy foods. I've passed by a few treats in my day just because I thought they'd be too spicy. Honestly, the only reason I ever get spicy treats to review are if they're a gift, if I misread the label, or it has to be so interesting that I'm willing to take the chance. Maybe it's not fair to those candy makers making spicy snacks out there, but I just find it hard to build up the courage to eat spicy treats very often.

Check out my latest spicy review, and remember that I went through a bit of pain to write it.

The Future Of Ketchup

 In the perfect world every condiment would be available in this fashion.

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Time To Find Out If The Real Thing Is Better

Have you ever thought about how much your potato chips actually taste like the flavour advertised on the package. I didn't, until now.

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It's Time To Crunch Some Doritos - Doritos "Ketchup"

I have really mixed feelings about Ketchup flavoured potato chips (let alone Ketchup flavoured corn chips). I can't say that I dislike them, yet it's probably a flavour of chip that I would never buy. This is a flavour that I truly enjoy, yet I've never craved it. That seems a little weird to me. I can safely say that just about every snack I've reviewed on candycritic.org that has a higher than 10 review score, at some point I've craved it again, except for Ketchup flavoured chips. It's a little weird.

Click here to read about these chips that I really enjoyed, but I'm not sure why.

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If you want something really fun, check out my micro comic called Snack Facts.

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This Week In Candy

It's going to be a short one today as this week is absolute madness here at Candy Critic.  Most notably, we're going home this week, for a few years at least.  We're packing up and moving back to Canada for a few years, and this week is the week where we make the move.  We'll have a round up of everything once we're back in Canada and settled in a bit.  I've also got a few ideas for posts for our journey back home (which will likely take about 30 or 40 hours).  Make sure to check out our Twitter and Facebook feeds for regular updates (or at the very least whenever we have internet).

Since we knew this week would be insane, we set up a bunch of articles to be posted on the blog while we're in transit.  So you'll still get your weekly dose of a Candy Thing, and Candy In The Media.  We're also going to be posting a new recipe, and it's a really good one, and that's going up tomorrow.

This week's new review is almost a sequel to last week's review.  I picked up last's week's review (which was a crazy new flavour of Lay's chips), and a friend of mine suggest I try another interesting flavour.  He claimed that although the concept was a little weak, the way they did them was pretty good. Click here to check out this old idea done in a new way.

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This Week In Candy

Last week I was challenged... well sort of, by the folks at Kit Kat to make a Kit Kat hot dog.  There's pretty much no food challenge I won't consider, and this one seemed like it might work out.  On Twitter, the folks from Kit Kat sent me a photo of a Kit Kat hot dog and kind of dared me to try it.  The bread and Kit Kat seemed like it would be not problem, but I was a little concerned about the ketchup.  At first I went through the various ingredients that I could use that would look like ketchup, but would taste good on a Kit Kat bar.  I had a few ideas like jam and strawberry sauce, but then I thought about it.  I thought that using anything but ketchup would be cheating, and not really in the spirit of the challenge.

So I decided that the best thing I could do is just go for it.  As you can see above, it's not the most appetizing of foods to look at, but strangely enough the ketchup wasn't so bad.  The fact that many bottled ketchup's have so much sugar worked with the Kit Kat bar.  The slightly sour vinegar taste of the ketchup actually balanced out with the sweet Kit Kat.  While I don't think we'll be seeing a Ketchup Kit Kat in the near future, it wasn't as gross as I thought it would be.

We just posted a new episode of our Junk Fud podcast.  Junk Fud is a podcast where I chat with my friends about the world of candy, baked goods, fast food, and anything else we might deem as "junk food".  This episode I'm talking with my friend Mark about one of our favorite foods, pizza.  Mark and I are going to try and post a monthly episode of Junk Fud, and we're looking for any subject ideas you might have.  You can download the latest episode here, as well as some of our older episodes as well.

Over the last few weeks several chocolate bar companies have announced that they're changing the size of their chocolate bars.  Some companies have also come out announcing that they refuse to change the size, but prices will likely go up.  This is in big part to a huge increase in the price of cocoa right now.  Or more realistically, a huge fluctuation in the price of cocoa over the last few years.  Since candy companies don't know how much they're going to be paying for cocoa, they assume that they're paying the most it's been for a while, rather than lose money.  So what's your opinion on this, should candy companies change the size of chocolate bars, make them more expensive, or is there another alternative to keeping the candy industry in business.

I can't believe I'm already down to the fourth paragraph and I'm only now talking about Valentine's Day.  It's this week, and that means that heart shaped boxes of chocolates, conversation hearts, and heart shaped lollipops are going to be flying off the shelf this week.

To help you gear up for the holiday of love, this week on Snack Facts we'll be looking at Valentine's Day.  Check out our Instagram feed were every day we'll be posting a new fun fact about the holiday we all love.  If you're not on Instagram, you can also follow our loving posts on our Facebook page and our Twitter feed as well.

I've reviewed a few Valentine's treats in my day, but so many of them aren't really that clever.  So this year I thought of the most clever treat you could give that someone you love.  I thought the Passion Flake is both tasty and a clever gift for this holiday, I just hope Allison agrees.

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Mustard and Ketchup Review

All we're really missing at this point is a hot dog.  Whenever I think of these two flavours, hot dogs are the first thing that pop into my head, particularly those inexpensive hot dogs from IKEA.  I always know what I'm getting when I buy one of those hot dogs, but for some reason I always come back for more.  Fortunately today's review didn't taste like IKEA hot dogs, although I'm sure I'd buy a bag of chips that did.

Click here to read today's chip review.

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Spreads - Ketchup

I just finished an art piece for bewarethecheese.com's fine art gallery "Senses". For this piece I had to photograph, and eventually eat more than 40 different spreads.  I've decided to post a little something about each spread that I sampled.

Most people consider ketchup to be the bottom rung of condiments   You'll never find ketchup at a fine restaurant, and it's considered bad form to ask for some at a classy dinner.  I don't get it, why is ketchup a "bad food".  Sure the bottled stuff has a fair amount of sugar, but why aren't companies making a unprocessed version.  I want to see a classy ketchup, and I want to smear it all over my scrambled eggs.

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Happy Hot Dog Man

So many reasons why this commercial is great.

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