World War Crisps: The Popcorn Revolution

Now, I don't know about you but there are only a few things in life which I'm quite sure will never let you down. Whether it be a well-layered bacon sandwich after a hefty night out or a well-placed sofa in front of a television, this ramble is based solely around a beautiful food product, which now finds itself in a war. I'm talking of course, about crisps.

The public are oblivious to this situation and it is happening right under our noses. Let me give you a run down as I have been watching this development closely.

It all began in 2012, crisps were just minding there own business, sales were consistent and rolling well. Walkers were continuing there beautiful reign, which the crisp world was well aware of and accepted this. But then... this happened.

An article was released (by a paper that shall remain unnamed) suggesting that now was the time to ditch crisps as a new healthier and convenient force was coming to the shelves. Sales for this product had jumped 300 per cent, which is a lot of per cent, and suggested that this product was "suddenly the most fashionable snack on supermarket shelves". The product, was popcorn.

Now, let's rewind time. Because we can. In the early noughties popcorn knew its place. It dominated the cinema area, simply salt or sweet, simply brilliant. Because that is what popcorn is at this point. It isn't complicated, because the cinematic experience shouldn't be so, crisps doesn't get a look in.

Crisps are aware of this and accept it. They don't understand why when watching television popcorn is a better option, if anything it's louder and would prove a frustrating distraction whilst watching a film, but that was that. Crisps lived outside, popcorn inside, the prospect of otherwise occurring was just not on.

But then Popcorn just decided to get greedy. Suddenly this wasn't good enough.

I'm not sure what happened? Why did this occur? What MONSTER, decided that it would be a good idea to expand and just full on attack the market where crisps clearly ruled. Bread and Milk looked on in amusement. They had no invitation and in my opinion, it was just darn rude.

"But hold on!" said the people of crisps.

"WE RULE THIS LAND... But we shall accept your back-door entrance, on this occasion."

Maybe it would be nice to have another fair option to bring to the table. But by inviting popcorn to play, they didn't realise they had effectively allowed an aggressive enemy to come in, with tanks and shit, and blow the situation wide open.

And then it happened. It was no longer just salt or sweet, it was flavours galore. CheeseCorn, Caramel Crisp, Cashew Caramel Crisp and then the recipes developed and suddenly popcorn could offer these supposed "fashionable" options which quite frankly made the crisps world want to vom like an aggressive drunk.

Over a 10 year period Popcorn has gone from cinematic rare food to a regularly purchased snack. And as the public, we only had ourselves to blame.

We had been brainwashed into thinking that because it's "new" and "fresh" it needs to be done. The truth, which most people appeared to be avoiding for no apparent reason, was that crisps offer all this and more.

Crisps were under pressure.

But then... this happened:

http://www.actiononsalt.org.uk/less/surveys/2015/Popcorn/157970.html

If you can't be bothered to read the link above, let me break it down for you.

Popcorn has shit loads of salt in it. Which turns out, is NOT a good thing.

Thankfully for the kings of crisps, we live in a world now where food health is quite important. I guarantee that most people will have a conversation daily which will involve either calorie counting or people "trying to be good", even though a high percentage of people don't know what that actually is.

Crisps knew they weren't off the hook, it's not like they were alarmingly healthy, but it took the positive public word of popcorn and shook it up a bit. Fashionable food nowadays tends to equal healthy, affordable and ideally quick.

Now we come to the present day, and after a topsy-turvy war we appear to be at a stalemate. Having said that, popcorn's persistence doesn't seem to be halting, the battle will continue to commence.

So I think we need to have to take a good looooong look at ourselves.

Do we want to live in a world where popcorn is the dominant snacking option? I think not...

We owe it to crisps to help them get through this treacherous time. They have been servicing our needs and wants for decades and deserve respect. Whether it be a simple Ready Salted or an elaborate Thai Sweet Chilli, we can't let these beautiful flavours go down without a fight.

So, I think it's time to kick popcorn in the Prawn Cocktail. Go away popcorn. You suck.