Second Rate Snacks

Is the imitation as good as the original? Cookies, crackers, snacks and goodies get the head to head competition treatment as a group of cultured pallets solve age old questions...like this:

Cheez-Its are one of my all-time favorite snacks. For some reason they go really well with Tab. I thought it was just me but I had some people try the Tab with Cheez-its once and they agreed. I don’t know what it is but I don’t care. Cheez-Its of course do mighty fine on their own too and that’s why I love them so much. I’ve tried other brands but they’re just not the same. For this evaluation, I got the arch enemy of Cheez-Its: Cheese Nips.

Cheez-It
One comment was that these have a toasty cheese flavor. We all felt the saltiness was just right and they have a good crunch to them. I usually like to let these sit in my mouth for a little bit and suck off the salt and then let the “it” soften up and then that’s when I take a swig of Tab (so good!). We all agreed these had a very satisfying cheese flavor and a nice crunchy (one person thought somewhat buttery as well) texture.

Cheese Nips
Cheese Nips were visually different in that they seemed to have less texture, like a saltine. There isn’t the salt presence that Cheez-it has, although some did have a few smaller granules of salt on them. We agreed these lacked the same full-bodied cheese flavor and almost resembled an oyster cracker with a little bit of cheese flavor. Also, these were a little dryer than Cheez-Its and didn’t soften in my mouth the way Cheez-its do.

Verdict
Cheez-It all the way from all of us. Although Cheese Nips claim they have real Cheddar cheese in them and Cheez-It’s don’t, I guess whatever Cheez-It is doing is right (to us anyway) because we enjoyed these much more. I know this is kind of touchy because people seem to get upset over these dueling cheese crackers. I mentioned I was going to compare these to the intern at work (way back earlier this month when I had a job) and she felt very strongly about Cheese Nips and how disgusting Cheez-Its were, almost like she thought people who favored Cheez-Its also ate dog food.