“America runs on trans-fats.”

~John Goodman

America hates having to stop eating between meals.  If we could have our way, we would spend all day scarfing down a pile of food with our hands tied behind our back like our life is one never ending pie eating contest.  But, unfortunately, an American life requires American duties.  Some of us have to work, some of us have to go to classes, and some of us have to devote a portion of the day to filming ourselves having aggressive sex with our enemy’s wife in an extremely destructive act of vengeance.  The days of fat men being pulled around in a rickshaw by manslaves as their ladyslaves hand feed them hunks of sausage went out of style at the same time as shoulder pads.

Sure, there have been attempts to limit the amount of time between our nation’s pure unadulterated gluttony.  Taco Bell created “Fourth Meal” to cater to the drunk and stoned Americans.  Brunch was brought into the equation as a way to determine which couples you don’t want to spend your Saturday nights around.  24 hour diners helped blur the lines between drunk breakfast and drunk dinner.  But, America has always had one weapon in its arsenal against healthy eating habits- snacks.  Snack time has been encouraged since our childhood, and with it we have invented portable, cheap food doused in all the calories and fats you could ever dream of.

And of the American snack, one snack in particular emerges as the undisputed king.  That of course would be the fried, unhealthy, invented in America snack- the potato chip.  Invented in America, the potato chip is small enough to be considered a snack, unhealthy enough to worry health food advocates, and delicious enough to be replicated in numerous countries to afford us all a chance to say, yet again, “Goddamn it, Japan, you’re doing it wrong!”

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