The Great Snack Food/Cereal/Soda Smackdown of 2010

Next week will mark the completion of our sixth month on the rationing program. Can you believe it? The half-way mark!

Next week will also mark the start of the Great Snack Food/Cereal/Soda Smackdown of 2010. What? You don't know about this? Well, lemme 'splain.

For nearly six months we've been toodling along with the rationing program fairly comfortably (except for the lack of green vegetables in the winter and that liver incident I don't want to talk about). And an important part of why we've been fairly comfortable is because cereals, crackers and chips were not rationed, so we have not put any restrictions on those items. But in reality, this isn't fair.

You see, in the 1940s there was not the enormous variety of snack crackers, chips and cereals as there are now. There were no Cool Ranch Doritos, Ritz Chips Sweet Chili and Sour Cream nor Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal to appease the masses. Hence, while we've missed things like lettuce, pork chops and ketchup at times we've been able to stuff ourselves on these modern (and questionably nutritious) items.

And that's just not fair.

So, to renew our commitment in the second half of the rationing year we are imposing a limitation on snack foods, cereals and sodas: they must be period appropriate. What does this mean for us? Here's a list of what will be available (and the year it was first commercially produced)...

Crackers
Ritz Crackers (1934)
Saltines (19th century)
Graham Crackers (1829)
Cheez-Its (1921)
Triscuits (1902)

Chips
Frito's (1932)
Tortilla Chips (early 1940s)
Plain (salted) Potato Chips (1853)
Pretzels (1889)

Cereals

Grape Nuts (1898)
Shredded Wheat (1893)
Cheerios (1941)
Corn Flakes (1894)
Raisin Bran (1926)
Kix (1937)
Chex (1937)
Rice Crispies (1928)

What won't be allowed are those newer, fancy-flavored, highly processed varieties. For crackers this means no Goldfish or specially flavored versions of the approved list. Doritos, Pringles, cheese puffs and the likes won't be available in the chip category. When it comes to cereals we will be avoiding most children's cereals (we already do - way too much sugar and artificial colors) and the specialty cereals which include sweetened or frosted pieces.

TMOTH is a Grape Nuts man, and my cereal of choice is shredded wheat, so our breakfasts will remain compliant. We will, for the first time in their lives, allow the girls to sprinkle a tiny amount of sugar on their cereal if that will help the plain shredded wheat go down better.

I imagine we'll get a bit creative and learn how to make our own version of Doritos and such using the resources we have (I have quite the spice collection).

And as far as soda's go...the biggest change is that no artificial sweeteners will be allowed. Mostly, this will affect me, since my maximum three sodas I drink per week are of the diet kind. We won't be too stringent about whether or not the soda actually existed in the 1940s, since we rarely drink soda and when we do it's along classic soda lines (Pepsi, 7Up) rather than newer varieties (Mountain Dew).

What would be the most difficult snack/cereal/soda item for you to go without?

--Rational Mama


P.S. This is our 100th post! My, how time flies!