2015’s Best Halloween Junk Food, Part 2!
As the Halloween season creeps closer to its conclusion, you may need a little pick-me-up to keep your spirit in check. Easiest solution: Eat a buncha junk food!
It’s been an incredible season on the spooky food front, as I’ve evidenced many times over the last few months. Here’s another batch of this year’s best Halloween junk food, waiting to be hunted and purchased and devoured and excreted.
Gross.
Halloween Crunch Cereal!
Halloween Crunch has been around for almost ten years now, leaving me with the sad realization that I had no good reason to write more about it. What’s worse, the cereal spent the previous several years repeating the same box design, making longtime Halloween bloggers like me cry real tears over having nothing new to report.
Well, this year is different! While the cereal remains unchanged, they finally updated the box. Guys, they swung for the FENCES with this one. It’s by far the best-looking of this year’s Halloween cereal boxes, so dark and so foreboding that I almost can’t believe Quaker Oats signed off on it.
If you’re new to Halloween Crunch, it’s normal Cap’n Crunch with the added bonus of reddish ghost shapes, which each hide powdery pockets of green food dye. When milk is added, the dye turns it green, leaving you with a big bowl of weirdness that looks straight out of Nilbog. That’s so Halloweeny.
Pumpkin Spice Almonds!
These aren’t new for 2015, but whatever, they’re new to me. I’m a big fan of Blue Diamond’s other almond flavors — I would live on “Smokehouse” if given the chance — but I’ll admit to approaching the Pumpkin Spice variety with some trepidation.
My fears were unfounded. These taste fine. Picture a honey roasted almond, but with less sugar and more nutmeg. Not my favorite from Blue Diamond’s collection, but as a fall-themed magnesium boost, they work great.
(2015 was the year I learned the secret truth about pumpkin spice. It means NOTHING. It’s code for “whatever spices we feel like adding, plus leaf graphics on the label.” I’m not saying that anyone has to like it, but to treat it like some repulsively otherworldly flavor is a bit much. It’s time we found some other trivial thing to dramatize.)
Ghosts + Bats Garden Veggie Chips!
Okay, we HAVE to talk about these. Made by Sensible Portions, these “Ghosts + Bats” Garden Veggie Chips are unbelievably cool. While having absolutely no ties to the Sensible Portions company, I still feel PERSONALLY OFFENDED by the relatively few people I’ve seen championing these chips. They deserve everyone’s love!
Now, I’ll grant that they taste a bit bland, but that’s kind of the point. Each mini-bag has less than 4 grams of fat and only 70 calories. For what still constitutes as “junk food,” that’s pretty healthy. Besides, they could taste like donkey manes for all I care. LOOK AT THOSE SHAPES.
The ghost and bat-shaped chips are extremely delicate, and each bag will present many casualties of war. I think that only adds to the effect. See, these aren’t straight up bats and ghosts, but rather tormented bats and tormented ghosts. Check out those sad faces!
Helplessly immobile, it is we who play the villains, swallowing souls like Shang Tsung and feeling no remorse. This is the right time of year to be that kind of asshole.
Starburst Halloween Mix!
I guess it doesn’t take much to make me happy, because these left me feeling like I just dropped U4EA with Brandon and Emily.
I’m not sure if the flavors are exclusive to this mix, but brother, “bewitched blueberry” is gonna taste better than “blueberry” even if they’re the exact same fucking thing.
Starburst’s Halloween Mix only boasts four flavors, but they’re all GOOD flavors. I think this is the only pack of Starburst I’ve ever been able to eat without doing color checks first. I popped ‘em blindly and was never disappointed. Everything tasted like Fun Dip, more or less.
(Dig that Frankenstein on the label, too!)
Pumpkin Spice Wrigley’s Extra!
Yes, pumpkin spice chewing gum. Okay, this may be pushing it.
Notice how the package looks like a really iffy Photoshop job. Like, I could see posting that on Facebook and being bombarded with comments about how people aren’t falling for it and fuck me and fuck my site.
Nope, it’s all real. The odd “Pumpkin Spice” font choice, the absolutely stock-as-shit outer glow surrounding it, the strange “Seasonal Edition” moniker. All totally legit. I don’t know why, but the crude simplicity adds something for me.
As for the flavor, it’s… inoffensive, but not something I have plans to ever experience again. I guess I’d describe the taste as a less-spicy “clove.” It reminds me of the months-old unwrapped pieces of gum that I used to fish from the bottom of my mother’s filthy purse. Chewable, but I’m not about to erect monuments out of Play-Doh.
Bonus points: Sampling each of these five items made me feel that much closer to the dark gods of Halloween. The best drugs at CVS aren’t in the pharmacy.
(Wanna see more of this year’s best Halloween junk food? Go here!)
