I am not sure how everyone else’s family works, but when one of my parents accidentally buys low-fat, low-sodium, or low-sugar snacks, everyone freaks out. The parent who buys the food, usually my mom, doesn’t do it on purpose, but there’s really no use defending herself. If she buys reduced-fat Chips Ahoy Cookies, we will tear her to shreds.
I’ve made this point before, but it still stands. Companies shouldn’t be allowed to make slightly healthier, but still unhealthy, versions of unhealthy snacks. I shouldn’t be able to get low-fat ice cream. The whole point of ice cream is to get fat.
The other day, I bought Cape Cod Potato Chips at Publix. Usually I don’t buy non-ice cream junk food, but I went to the supermarket for sandwich ingredients, and this seemed like an important sandwich accessory. When you’re feeling it, you’re feeling it.
There were a few labels on the bag. One was “Party Size,” which indicated that I had hit rock bottom. Another said the chips were “Non-GMO Project verified,” which I don’t care about at all. The bag proudly stated that there were no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives, which was sort of nice, but you really shouldn’t need artificial colors for chips.
The other two labels were confusing. One said the product was 40% reduced fat. The other said it was “Original.”
How could it be both original and 40% reduced fat? If I was purchase-able, there couldn’t be Original Jacob and Original 10% Taller Jacob. One of those would be a lie. 10% Taller Jacob isn’t original. He is just more successful on Tinder.
It turned out that the 40% reduced fat was in reference to “the leading brand of regular potato chips.” In other words, the bag I was holding contained 40% less fat than a bag of Lays. Nice! I grabbed the massive bag of kettle chips, slammed it on the food-conveyor-belt, and burned out in the Publix parking lot.
For a few days, I had no problem with the chips. They were crunchy and good. I also realized that if you buy a large bag of chips and you are the only person eating them, the bag can last for more than 45 minutes. Coming from a five-person family of chip fiends, this was novel.
Approximately 6 days after purchasing the chips, I began to think more about the “40% reduced fat” label. Had I been tricked into buying a reduced-fat snack? Had I committed an unforgivable sin, just like my evil mother?
I thought about being the first person to ever call the Cape Cod customer support line, but decided against berating a chip PR person. The website told me everything I needed. Cape Cod had owned me.
Turns out, the chips were original in flavor, but low in fat compared to the true original Cape Cod chips. If this seemed obvious to you when you started reading, congratulations. If I had just read the blurb on the back of the bag, I would have never gotten into this mess.
“If our reduced fat potato chips taste remarkably similar to our original Cape Cod chips, that’s because they are!” the blurb on the back of the bag cheerfully states.
This hidden warning does not excuse Cape Cod’s salacious lies. How can you have two originals? Is originality dead? I had never felt more of a kinship with Shakespeare, even after theoretically reading all of his histories and tragedies in a semester-long course.
Really, the only difference between the two is that the fraud ones have 6.5 total grams of fat instead of 8.5 That means that they have 23.5% less fat than the original ones, which is really not that much.
Both varieties have the same number of calories. They taste the same because they are basically the same. Makes you wonder why Cape Cod even bothered with these chips.
Unless you are a Cape Cod chip fanatic and do double-blind Cape Cod taste tests on a nightly basis, you won’t be able to tell the difference.
But if you have any integrity, you will never eat Cape Cod chips again.
Cape Cod Chips (original, but also somehow reduced-fat): 8.0/10
Cape Cod Chips (original): 8.0/10
Cape Cod Integrity: 0.0/10 #defund
